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BY 



LEONARD BROWN 



' TWO THOUSAND CAPITALISTS OWN MORE THAN ALL THE REST 

OF THE SIXTY-FIVE MILLIONS OF OUR POPULATION. TWO 

HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND RICH MEN CONTROL 

SEVENTY-FIVE PER CENT OF THE NATIONAL WEALTH. 

THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC IS THEREFORE PRACTICALLY 

OWNED BY LESS THAN ONE QUARTER OF A MILLION OF 

PERSONS. IF PRESENT CAUSES WHICH PRODUCE 

CONCENTRATION OF CAPITAL CONTINUE, THE 

REPUBLIC WILL SOON BE OWNED BY LESS 

THAN FIFTY THOUSAND MEN. " Rev. 

Joseph Cook, IN TREMONT TEM- 
PLE, BOSTON, FEBRUARY 3, 189O. 



PRICE 50 CENTS PER COPY, 



PLEA FOR CO-OPERATION, THE RIGHTS OF MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD 
PEACE AND PROGRESS, PATRIOTISM AND PHILANTHROPY, 
HOME AND COUNTRY. 



THE 



Pending Conflict 

between tie Masses and the Classes, . 

A PROTEST AGAINST GREED, INHUMANITY, TYRANNY AND WAR. 



BY 

LEONARD BROWN 



"And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty 
throughout all the land to all the inhabitants thereof. "—Leviticus 25: 10. 

u Overcome evil with good. * * Put up thy sword into the sheath. 
* * Let him that is without sin cast the first stone at her. "—Jesus. 



CONTENTS: 

Division the First: OUT OF BONDAGE. 
Division the Second: INTO FREEDOM. 



CO^= > "^"^IC3-Xa:T SECX7BED, 1890. 



Des Moines, Iowa: 
JOURNAL COMPANY, PRINTERS, 513 MULBERRYf ST. 

1890. 



COMMENDATOKY. 

Mr. Leonard Brown: Des Moines, 29th April, 1889. 

Dear Sir— Your book, some parts oE which you have read to me, is written 
with much spirit, and shows a pure zeal for human welfare, and a living interest in 
the great army of working people., You seem to have caught a clear view of the 
pending conflict between the monopolist and the wage-worker. 

If your theory of co-operation could be even partially carried out, we would 
see a great change for the'better in the condition of the workers. While I could not 
adopt al) your statements I heartily endorse your principles. Truly yours, 

S. S. Hunting. 

You have certainly put a large amount of labor into this volume. It reveals a 
progressive and a patriotic spirit. Eev. S. J. Barrows, 

Editor Christian Register, Boston, Mass. 



NOTE TO THE KEADEK. 
I 

This pamphlet, written in advocacy of co-operation, and protesting against the 
manifest tendency of our government to despotism— a note of warning, if not the 
beat of the long roll at the opening of a most desperate conflict— the final struggle 
for the emancipation of labor, the establishment of equal rights, privileges and 
franchises for all men and all women—was produced by co-operative effort. It is 
part of a much larger volume, entitled " Our Own Columbia," which is designed to 
De published during the year 1892— the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery 
of America. This cheap volume is presented to the public in advance of the more 
costly work, which will comprise not less than 800 pages, handsomely printed on 
good paper and bound in cloth, sold by subscription C. 0. D. $2.50 to any one 
ordering a copy from the author. 

This modest work is a voyage of discovery— & searching for a new world— the 
Eldorado of the toilers. Reader, examine it carefully, thoughtfully. Few will 
realize what it has cost of persevering endeavor. Will the reader write the authqr 
his opinion of the reforms herein advocated? The men of Iowa who have been felloe 
navigators with me— my co-operative helpers in this voyage— are Thomas Mitchell, 
Bruce E. Jones, Charles S. Vorse, Al. Grefe, Simon Casady and William A. Park. 
My sincere gratitude is due also to James S. Clarkson, G. B. Pray, L. S. Coffin, 
J. G. Berryhill, R. T. Wellslager, William Christy, C. L. Dahlberg, Nathan Andrews, 
Resin Wilkins, N. J. Harris, Isaac Brandt, N. R Kuntz, W. H. Steadman, and 
Vfm. Schuetz, Jr., for material help. Of the many others who have "lent a hand" 
grateful mention will be made in the larger work. 

I will, upon invitation of labor organizations, political clubs, or literary socie- 
ties, Sill appointments to lecture in any part of the United States, on Co-operation, 
including the question of free lands, free tools, and free money, or upon the protec- 
tion of American industry, or the abolishment of the saloons. Address, 

LEONARD BROWN, Polk City, Iowa. 



t 



DEDICATION OF "OUB OWN COLUMBIA." 
Hon. Thomas Mitchell— / * ' '" -Clj 

My Dear Friend: I dedicate this earnest plea for Christian Liberty and 
Equality to the memory of your two noble sons, I 

0RR1N FISKE MITCHELL and WALTER AINSWORTH MITCHELL, % 

As a faint recognition of their great worth and a slight token of my lasting grati- 
tude to you and yours. Leonard Brown. J 
Des Moines, Iowa, April 30, 1889. 



THE PKEFACE OF " OUR OWN COLUMBIA." 

Header! Nine hundred million dollars are reported squandered and one hun- 
dred thousand men murdered in the service of king alcohol yearly in our country — 
'while the misery and squalid poverty produced by this detestable tyrant are incal- 
culable. The first great reform that must be accomplished before labor can be 
emancipated is the destruction of the saloon. To this end let every toiler work 
and vote, speak and write, strive and pray. 

But each should specially seek for himself personal temperance. Each should 
"rule his own soul." Whoever takes even one drink for. the sake of the beverage is 
morally a drunkard, as he who steals a pin is a thief. "Touch not, taste not, 
handle not," should be our motto. There is no safety except in tetotalism. If I 
boastingly say that " I can drink and I can let it alone; " had I ten sons, at least 
nine of the ten will follow my example of the drinking, no doubt, but will one let it 
alone? To build up a happy home is the first great object of life. No drinking 
man can do this. 

Reference in these pages to temperance, to religion and to politics, is made in 
the interest of no sect or party, nor to antagonize any, but wholly in furtherance 
o£ that morality, philanthropy and patriotism, common to catholic Christianity, 
and in vindication of the inalienable rights of man. The whole is meanj; to be but an 
. amplification of the ideas embodied in the Sermon of Jesus on the Mount, and in the 
Declaration of American Independence; hence, this book presents no novel or 
heretical doctrines, either religious or political; but only truths that all christian 
philanthropists and American patriots are presumed to believe. 

The enemy of freedom, therefore, I protest, attacks the citadel of christian truth 
when he raises his voice against the social reforms herein advocated. I invite him 
to show incongruity between the teachings of the New Testament, or of the ancient 
or modern church, and the application of those teachings to the amelioration of 
the condition of the poor and oppressed, as herein pointed out. T shall continue to 
insist upon his meeting me in this discussion on Bible grounds/., American liberty 
sprang from the Bible. It is an outgrowth of Christianity. It i 1 Christianity itself: 
crystalized in law and institution. That crystalization mustj'io on until the Ser- 
mon of Jesus on the Mount has become the fundamental Constitution of the United 
States of the World and wars shall be no more. 

The paramount question to-day is the labor problem. The wage system has 
been tried and is found wanting. How may it be peacefully abolished? I offer a 
few thoughts on the issue; but with no egotistical flourish of trumpets. I do not 
cry " Eureka" — but I do speak sincerely the best word I am qualified to say, guided 
ever by the light of the New Testament. Let every truth-loving man and woman 
:go and do likewise, and the outcome will be satisfactory. Wage slavery will be 
peacefully abolished and co-ODerative industry will take its place. 

When the great majority favor any reform, that reform will most assuredly be 
brought about, sooner or later. When John Brown, of Osawatomie, was hung at 
Harper's Ferry, chattel slavery was already dead. The tide of civilization had 
risen so high as to drown it, and it only awaited burial. But the failure of South- 
ern statesmen to perceive this truth led to immeasurable loss and suffering to the 
people South and North. All institutions shape themselves to correspond with the 
advanced line of civilization— with the growth of ideas. Wage slavery is manifestly 
as dead now as was chattel slavery in 1860. The second emancipation of slaves fol- 
lows the first as certainly as suurise follows the dawn. 

The finance question is viewed by me from the American stand-point and not 
from the British, as is unhappily done by most teachers of political economy in 
our colleges, who are still misguided by British text books. Away with all British 
text books of political economy from our schools. The British system of so-called 
political science is based upon the idea of inequality of rights— enriching the few at 
the expense of the many : the American system upon the idea of equality of rights- 
retaining in the hands of the many the wealth produced by them. The finance sys- 
tem that builds up a^ad perpetuates an aristocracy of wealth, should be discarded 
by us, as out of harmony with our institutions and government. The doctrine that 
gold alone should be recognized as money, if adopted as the law of our country, 
would overthrow our democratic government and reduce the American people to a 
condition of slavery equally oppressive with that imposed bjp Great Britain, through 
iorce of arms, upon the people of India. 



( 4 ) 

I have long looked anxiously forward to the time when I could make pilgrimage- 
to our country's noted historic shrines to write my long contemplated national 
poem, "America." I would pitch my tent near Plymouth Eock and at Valley 
Forge, and I would visit all the battle-fields of the Revolution, seeking inspiration 
on the grounds where the sacrifices were made by our fathers for our liberty. But 
I have now reached the threshold of the fifty-third year of my life and I may not 
live to realize this my long cherished hope. But our country will not lack patriotic* 
poets better qualified to do justice to the great theme than I to themes less arnbi-' 
tious. The most magnificent country on earth will produce sublime poets to sing 
her greatness. My mission is to go before; as an humble pioneer of American song in 
the trans-Mississippi valley, to prepare thefway for the approach of the grand army 
of truly democratic poets ; and the little measure of success won by me, in these 
early and unpropitious times, will, I trust, afford no little encouragement to those 
who shall follow after, in a later and more auspicious day. 

But the primary object I have in view is not, I trust, self— is not to vindicate 
my claim to recognition as a great writer. My desire is to do an humble part in 
the mighty work that cannot be stayed, for the improvement of the social condi- 
tion of mankind. I would make it good for children to be born, by making it the 
supreme object of legislation to bless the little ones. No great revolution is needed 
to perfect our social state, only the carrying out in good faith the doctrine of 
equality, voiced in the Declaration of American Independence, by the inauguration 
of a few simple reforms founded on the Golden Rule. 

A late number of the New Review (English) has* the following to say of the 
co-operative principle : 

"The co-operative principle is distinct from the socialistic or anarch al theories, 
yet it goes a long way. The advocate of equity to labor maintains labor to be the 
industrious man's capital, and that it should be respected like the rich man's capi- 
tal, and rewarded like it. Until this is done there will always be ' poor in the land/ 
dwelling in*unhealthy lodgings and perishing of overwork, privation and disease, in 
the midst of their days. How can the priest in his temple give God honest thanks 
'for all his mercies to the children of men' when he knows they are dying of poverty 
and squalor within a few yards of his altar. How can a gentleman sit down? 
without remorse, in the splendor of his home, while those that make the wealth 
lead cheerless lives and the curses of the hopeless are heard in the air? Co-opera- 
tion proposes to make the world fit for gentlemen to live in it. It is not so now. 
But it will be so when every man has an equal opportunity of competence according: 
to his condition, and not till then." 






DIVISION THE FIRST. 



OUT OF BONDAGE. 

"There will dawn"ere long on our politics, on our modes of living, a nobler 
morning in the sentiment of love. Our age and history of these thousand years has 
not been the history of kindness, but of selfishness. Our distrust is very expensive. 
The money spent for courts and prisons is ill-laid out. We make by distrust the 
thief, the burglar, and incendiary, and by our courts and jails we keep him so. An 
acceptance of the sentiment of love throughout Christendom for a season, would bring 
the felon and outcast to our side in tears and the devotion of his faculties to our 
service. Let our affection flow out to our fellows; it would operate in a day the 
greatest of all revolutions. The state must consider the poor man and all voices 
must speak for him. Every child bom must have a just chance (with work) for his 
bread." Emerson, 



ESSAY I.— THE QUESTION STATED. 



I. The Constitution as it Was. 

On the 26th day of May, 1787, George 
Washington was elected president of the 
Convention of Delegates of the several 
states of the Union assembled in Phila- 
delphia to revise the Articles of Confed- 
eration, "to render the Federal Consti- 
tution adequate to the exigencies of the 
government and the preservation of the 
Union." On the 16th day of September 
the Constitution, as amended, was agreed 
to by all the states, and ordered engross- 
ed. On the following day, September 
17th, after the reading of the Constitu- 
tion, as engrossed, the venerable Frank- 
lin rose, and, placing a written speech in 
the hands of Mr, Wilson, requested him 
to read it. Franklin said: " Mr. Pres- 
ident, I confess there are several parts 
of this Constitution which I do not at 
present approve, but I am not sure that 
I shall never approve them; for having 
lived long, I have experienced many in- 
stances of being obliged, by better infor- 
mation or fuller consideration, to change 
opinions, even on important subjects, 
which I once thought right but found to 
be otherwise. It is, therefore, tnat the 
older I grow the more apt I am to doubt 
my own judgment and to pay more res- 
pect to the judgment of ethers. In these 
sentiments, sir, I agree to this Constitu- 
tion with all its faults, if they are such, 
because I think a general government 
necessary for us; and there is no form of 
government but may be a blessing to the 
people if well administered and I be- 



lieve further, that this is likely to be 
well administered; for a course of 
years, and can only end in despot- 
ism, as other forms have done before 
it, when the people shall have be- 
come so corrupted as to need despotic 
government, being incapable of any other. 
I doubt, too, whether any other conven- 
tion'^ can obtain may be able to make 
a better Constitution. For when you 
assemble a number of men to have the 
advantage of their joint wisdom, you 
inevitably assemble with those men all 
their prejudices, their passions, their 
errors of opinion, their local interests 
and their selfish views. From such an 
assembly can a perfect production be 
expected? It therefore astonishes me, 
sir, to find this system approaching so 
near perfection as it does; and I tkink it 
will astonish our enemies, who are wait- 
ing with confidence to hear that our 
councils are confounded, like those of 
the builders of Babel; and that our 
states are on the point of separation, 
only to meet hereafter for the purpose of 
cutting one another's throats." 

When the last members were signing 
their names to the immortal instrument, 
Dr. Franklin looking toward the presi- 
dent's chair, at the back of which a ris- 
ing sun happened to be painted, observed 
to a few members jiear him, that "paint- 
ers had found it difficult to distingush in 
their art a rising from a setting sun. I 
have", said he, " often and often in the 
course of the session, and the vicissi- 
tudes of my hopes and fears as to its 






( 6 ) 



issue, looked at that behindjthe president 
without being able to tell whether it was 
rising or setting; but now, at length, I 
haye the happiness to know that it is a 
rising and not a setting sun."* 

George Washington was inaugurated 
the first president of the United States 
April 30, 1789. That was the day, then, 
on which the new Constitution went into 
effect. In his inaugural address the first 
president said : 

"No people can be bound to acknowl- 
edge and adore the invisible hand which 
conducts the affairs of men more than 
the people of the United States. Every 
step by which they have advanced to 
the character of an independent nation 
seems to have been distinguished by 
some token of providential agency; and 
in the important revolution just accom- 
plished in the system of their united gov- 
ernment, the tranquil deliberations and 
voluntary consent of so many distinct 
communities from which the event has 
resulted, cannot bd compared with the 
means by which most governments have 
been established without some return of 
pious gratitude, along with humble an- 
ticipation of the future blessings which 
the past seems to presage." 

One nundred years have now gone by 
since President Washington made these 
pious remarks and indulged these hope- 
ful anticipations. It is well for us to ex- 
amine, with the same patriotic heart- 
throbs as those that beat in the bosoms of 
Franklin and Washington, the real situ- 
ation of public affairs to-day. Have we 
reached, we may appropriately ask, that 
period when the government has ceased 
to be well-administered, and when des- 
potism is about to step in and super- 
cede it ? 

It would not be patriotic to attempt to 
cover up and conceal the truth. Great 
corporations have grown up within 
the government that overshadow it 
as the loftiest peaks of the Eocky 
Mountains overshadow ^ the lowest 
knobs — the combined incomes of 
the railroad corporations of the 
United States exceeding the combined 
incomes of the federal and all the forty- 
two state governments, to say nothing 
about the incomes of the three thousand 
national banks and of the thousands of 
insurance corporations, oil syndicates, 
telegraph companies, etc., etc. But all 
these unite against the people to control 
the government, national and state, for 
their own selfish ends. The question to 
be answered is, can the people by means 
of the ballot control government, and by 
legislation hold the interests of corpora- 
tions subordinate to the common wel- 
fare? or must the common welfare be 
set at naught to build up millionaire 
barons ? 

To maintain unimpaired the good be- 
stowed upon us by the authors of our 

* Madison Papers. 



liberty, the creators of the Federal Con- 
stitution, is our ftrst, most important^ 
most essential duty. This good is being 
filched from us by the influence exercised* 
over the three departments of govern- 
ment, legislative, judicial and executive, 
by the powerful interests represented by 
gigantic corporations, the creations of 
law, that should be its obedient crea- 
tures; but they 'assume to be above 
their creator and the masters of the 
people. Tremendous progress has been 
made by them toward the utter destruc- 
tion of the great Temp'e of* Liberty 
founded on the Constitution. It is be- 
ing mined. Batteries have been planted 
that threaten its demolition. These* 
must be stormed and taken and the- 
guns spiked. 

From certain classes of foreigners dom- 
iciled _, among us, unacquainted with* 
American ideas and prejudiced against 
American institutions, we have also 
much to fear. They are slow to believe 
that, as far as institution can go, the 
"perfect commonwealth" is already real- 
ized in the United States, if only the 
American people enact those subordin- 
ate measures of legislation that they 
have the constitutional right to enact, 
for the building up of co-operative pro- 
duction and distribution of products,, 
rendered imperative by the progress of 
society. The fundamental law is not 
responsible for the curse of class legisla- 
tion that afflicts us now. The people 
only are responsible. Why do the masses 
not dictate all our laws? There is no* 
reason why they do not, except that 
they do not take hold. Nothing can be 
done with folded arms. If the Constitu- 
tion has become a <! dead letter" it is be- 
cause of the indifference of the masses* 
Are they too ignorant to govern them- 
selves ? Then is our condition hopeless 
until there has been an advance made in 
popular enlightenment. 

The American Constitution is ample 
now without further "amendments"' 
(which may, however, be added when 
necessary) to assure us a harmonious 
and happy social condition, equal to- 
that anticipated for the Twentieth Cen- 
tury Commonwealth of Edward Bel- 
lamy, if "to the people, by the people, 
for the people " be extended the benefits 
of legislation now monopolized by the 
" corporation kings." The many, regain- 
ing possession and control of the helm 
of the Old Ship of State, will direct her 
course toward the ancient haven of "the 
greatest good to the greatest number."' 
That supreme good is the ripened fruit 
of the Tree of Liberty planted by our 
Puritan forefathers. 

II. Willie and Tommy O'Neal. 

Leaving the Grand Pacific Hotel, Chi- 
cago, on a frosty Monday morning of 
October, 1888, for the Northwestern 
depot, a little nine year old boy ran up> 



( 7 ) 



to me and asked if he might carry my 
grip, He had not carried it far when I 
saw that he could hardly get along with 
it, though the weight of the satchel was 
not great, so I took hold to help him. 
He said he felt unusually weak that 
morning, for he had been up all the night 
before, (he declared) without supper or 
sleep, walking the unfriendly streets of 
that great city to keep warm. " Why 
did you have to do so?" I asked. . "Oh 
because," said he, "I had not fifteen 
cents in my pocket to pay for my sup- 
per and lodging last night at the News 
Boy's Home." 

My eyes filled with tears, for the recol- 
lections were brought vividly to mind of 
my own and my little brother's child- 
hood sufferings— left as we were by the 
death of our dear, loving mother to care 
for ourselves at a tender age, our kind 
father having all he could do to support 
the younger children. But though driven 
from pillar to post we were never so 
completely abandoned as was this little 
one. I said to him, " Buddy, this ought 
not be. You mustj as soon as possible, 
get away from this mean town. If you 
will come to my cabin in Iowa I will 
take care of you* Either you may live 
with me (a poor man with a large family 
—twelve at table when we are 'all at 
home') or I will find you a better home; 
but I will be a father to you as far as I 
am able. I shall not, however, reach 
my home for several weeks to come or I 
would take you along with me right 
now." I gave him some money — all I 
could spare— for my purse was, as usual, 
light — to buy him a boot-black's outfit: 
for he said if he had this he thought he 
could get on quite well. I gave him my 
address also and received his promise to 
write to me. I then shook hands with 
him and kissed him good-bye. 

Before I left him his little brother 
Tommy joined us— a boy of 11 or 12 
years. The following letter reached my 
family several days in advance of my 
arrival at home : 

Chicago, Ills., Oct. 22, 1888. 

Leonard Brown.— We are staying at 
the News Boy's Home; but we are going 
to start for Polk City Tuesday night, 
and we hope that we will have a good 
home with you. We are ever so much 
obliged to you for your kindness. We 
made good use of the money that you 
gave us and we hope that we will always 
be friends. 

I am doing the best I can to make a 
living. I made a little money and 
bought an overcoat. We are very glad 
to make an honest living and to please 
you. 

With all our hearts your'dear friends, 
Willie O'Neal, 
Tommy O'Neal. 

The letter, as given above, is substan- 
tially as the little boys wrote it. But I 
haye, of course, corrected the spelling. 



It was evidently written by the little 
men themselves, and it is a manly letter 
indeed. The little boys did not, for 
some cause, put in appearance at my 
cabin; but if they do come they will be 
received as my own dear sons, for I have 
adopted . them, and every other little 
homeless one in my heart of hearts; and 
I shall follow them with my love to the 
end of my life. 

If God has given me a mission in this 
unfriendly world, it is to look after the 
welfare of little children. I, in my feeble 
way, would take them all in my arms 
and bless them, in imitation of the 
Divine Master, and as an act of Christian 
worship of God— the truest and highest 
I can conceive of. It is wrong for us to 
depend on God to answer prayers in be- 
half of the little ones that we can ans- 
wer ourselves. The doing is both the 
prayer and the answer of it. Let us 
pray for the neglected ones by act rather 
than by hollow utterance of windy 
words. 

III. Peace and Good Will. 

It is only with feelings of extremest 
sadness that I make uncomplimentary 
reference to the Christian people of Chi- 
cago who have done much for the poor 
and friendless. It is a shame to them if 
even one little helpless, homeless child is 
left to wander the cold streets of the 
great city (that received the fraternal 
aid, in her hour of firey trial, of a world 
not entirely unfeeling) shivering with cold 
on a Sunday night, without a kindly roof 
to shelter it from the frosts of October, 
or a crust of bread to eat, while a well- 
fed and well-clothed and well-paid 
clergy are delivering carefully written 
sermons from crimson covered pulpits 
to well dressed congregations, seated in 
velvet-cushioned pews, regaled with 
grandest music from costly organs 
within magnificent temples and beneath 
spires pointing to the skies. Oh, it is a 
shame ! Would not Jesus himself, could 
his indignant voice be again heard de- 
nouncing "pharisees and hypocrites," 
forbid further contributions for the 
building of churches and the support of 
clergy until the little, helpless, homeless 
children have been all bountifully fed and 
comfortably housed and placed under 
the care of kindest teachers? The min- 
istry of Jesus was a ministry of well- 
doing. He healed the physical infirm- 
ities of the suffering people, rich and 
poor, bestowed upon the little ones his 
blessing, and he bountifully fed the 
hungry multitudes. He built no temples 
of worship whatever, and he commanded 
none (as I have read) to be built. But 
the mountains and the plains were his 
temples, and the glorious firmament 
and starry vault of heaven was the 
dome of the cathedral in which he 
humbly worshiped his God-" Our Father 
in Heaven;" and he "went about doing 



( 8 ) 



good" — for which cause " the common 
people heard him gladly"— as they would 
even to-day hear gladly the same true 
gospel should it again be preached. But 
it has, it does seem to me, become al- 
most, if not quite obsolete, excepting as 
preached by the Catholic Sisters of 
Charity and Mercy and by a few philan- 
thropists of his Divine Brotherhood and 
Sisterhood, inside of all sects, and out- 
side of all sects — who, having caught the 
spirit of the Divine Master, fearlessly do 
the will of the Father— devoting their 
lives to the cause of the oppressed and 
suffering, uplifting the downtrodden and 
blessing the little children,— the Father 
Damiens, the Lovinia Benedicts, the 
Wendell Phillipses, the Wm. Lloyd Gar- 
risons, the Theodore Parkers, the Peter 
Coopers, and the Abby Mays of this 
century. 

The first great object of my life, after 
the care of my own dependent house- 
hold, is to see that no little one shall 
want. I would make it good for child- 
ren to be born. This, then, is the end 
of my desires and labors in the cause of 
secial and political reform. To this end 
I would preach everywhere, in season 
and out of season, the gospel of peace on 
earth and good will toward men. Be- 
side this one superlative reform, all 
other reforms are of trivial importance. 
When once it is fixed that the little ones 
shall' never want, then will the motive 
for selfishness be eliminated. Philan- 
thropy will be enthroned. That natu- 
ral love of children common to the 
human heart will embrace all, as it did 
in the mind of Jesus. That (as I see it) 
is the chief difference between a pagan 
and a christian; the pagan loves his 
children only, the christian loves all 
alike. Loving his neighbor as himself, 
he loves his neighbor's children as hiss 
own. And his love for the aged is that 
of the child for the parent. Bountiful 
provision will one day be made by the 
people for all the dependent poor. Chris- 
tianity crystalized into law, the sermon 
of Jesus on the Mount having become 
the fundamental Constitution of all gov- 
ernments, its principles being embodied 
in the fundamental law of each, one flag 
will then float over all states— the flag 
of the United States of the World— 
the starry flag with a thousand stripes. 
Home rule for each state and a common 
congress for all, is the condition that 
confronts the world in the immediate 
future. 

IV. The United States of the World. 

I would then rejoice to see Great Brit- 
ain, the United States of America, and 
all other nations, united under one flag — 
the flag of the United States of the 
World— wars forever brought to an end, 
and all disputes between the various 
independent commonwealths referred 



for settlement to a world's congress. 
This will at once be realized as soon as' 
the people universally rule. Then will 
the billions of money now spent in the 
support of armies, and the muscular 
power of man wasted in idle military 
camps and barracks, be dedicated to 
subduing the deserts and rendering all 
the waste places fertile. I believe that 
every acre of the desert lands of Africa, 
Asia, Australia and America may be 
made productive by means of artesian 
wells and machinery, and that the world 
car be made to* support in plenty and 
happiness a population a million times 
more numerous than at'present inhabits 
the earth. 

This idea of a United World is not im- 
practicable; for upon the American Con- 
tinent we behold united under one flag 
forty-two independent republics, cover- 
ing an area nearly, if not quite, as large 
as all Europe. Why is this happy con- 
dition of things realized here? Because 
we have abandoned many of the perni- 
cious political maxims of mother Eng- 
land. Malthusism is the controling 
principle of her polity. Blanqui in his 
History of Political Economy, refers to 
that terrible doctrine in the following 
words, viz : 

^ " Malthus pronounced this sentence on 
the unfortunates, in cruel terms: f A 
mart who is born into a world already 
full, if his family have no means to sup- 
port him, or if society has no need of his 
labor, has not the least right to claim 
any portion of food whatever, and he is 
really redundant on the earth. At the 
great banquet of nature there is no 
plate for him. Nature commands him 
to go away, and she delays not to put 
that order into execution.'' " 

This is a cold-blooded justification of 
barbarism. This is the doctrine that 
aristocratic England revels in and acts 
upon— a doctrine that neutralizes every 
principle of Christianity, every impulse 
of philanthropy— justifying war and 
the v barbarous principle that "might 
makes right," and she enforces it against 
her own subjects and against all nations. 
"This world is the property of the few," 
she says to the people of Ireland, India 
and Africa, and to her own stalwart 
workers on the island of Britain, and 
the many must be offered a sacrifice 
upon the altars of Moloch and Mam- 
mon; and no pitying tears shall be shed. 
This is the Pagan idea that our fathers 
resisted with arms in ' 1776, antago- 
nizing it with the Christian idea that 
"all men are created equal and endowed 
by their Creator with the inalienable 
rights of life, liberty and the pursuits of 
happiness." Upon this divine idea the 
American Union rests as upon a granite 
rock, and upon this rock will be founded 
the Greater Republic— the United States 
of the World. 



I 



! 



( 9 ) 



V, Mob Violence and Organized 
Tyranny. 

Mankind have never suffered from 
"mob violence" (so called) as they have 
constantly suffered from organized 
tyranny of governments. Of mob vio- 
lence we need have little fear; of organ- 
ized tyranny, much. No ship loads of 
emigrants have ever fled to the shores 
and wilds of America from the danger 
of mobs; but always from the tyranny 
of coercive laws enacted by well organ- 
ized governments. So the German an- 
archists are surely right in their one 
pious wish to put down coercive laws 
everywhere. This is what they mean, I 
think, when they say they are "opposed 
to laws," they mean that they are op- 
posed to coercion. But, says one, "all 
laws rest on the principle of coercion. 
This is what penalty means always." 
The laws of Moses, I grant, rested on 
the principle of coercion, but the law of 
Christ rests on that of " overcoming 
■evil with good" an entirely different 
and contrary principle that as yet has 
met little acceptance. It will be put in 
practice universally when mankind have 
become their own rulers. A reform 
school is not a penal institution It 
overcomes evil with good. "Penalty," 
Noah Webster says, "is the suffering in 
person or property which is annexed by 
law or judicial decision to the commis- 
sion of a crime, offense or trespass, as a 
punishment. A fine is a pecuniary pen- 
alty. The usual penalties inflicted on 
the person are whipping, cropping, 
branding, imprisonment, hard labor, 
transportation or death." 

And it was what Jefferson meant, no 
doubt, when he said, "Th£ Jess of gov- 
ernment the* better, if society be kept 
at peace." This is a glorious idea; and 
it will never do for us to lose sight of it 
in our fear of "mobs" and anachist 
riots and bombs — an insane scare, got- 
ten up by the cunning enemy of the peo- 
ple, the plotters for a. " stronger govern- 
ment," a military despotism for Amer- 
ica, who are determined not to "deal 
justly and love mercy," in. relation to 
the toilers, but to coerce them into 
downright serfs and slaves, and to this 
end they manipulate government and 
are, through its instrumentality, build- 
ing up quietly, "so as not to arouse op- 
position" (they say) a standing army 
of "State Regulars" under the false plea 
of "organizing the militia." An attempt 
no doubt will be again made by them 
soon to lobby through the lower house 
of congress, the revolutionary bill to 
"nationalize the militia" that, several 
months ago, through the influence of 
combined wealth, passed the national 
senate — a more dangerons move of 
" overweening cupidity and selfishness," 
it seems to me, than anything the crazy 
Anarchists, on our shores, have ever 
-attempted, proposed or even dreamed 



of in their wildest hallucinations. A 
profound truth President Cleveland ut- 
tered when he said in his last annual 
message to congress : " The communism 
of combined wealth and capital, the out- 
growth of overweening cupidity and 
selfishness, which insiduously under- 
mines the justice and integrity of free 
institutions, is not less dangerous than 
the "ommunism of oppressed poverty 
and toil, which, exasperated by injustice 
and discontent, attacks with wild disor- 
ders the citadel of rule." Then, let the 
workers not dream of peace when there 
is no peace. A Hydra is now coiled 
above their heads around the trunk and 
branches of the Tree of Liberty, and it 
is reaching down its many mouths to 
snatch them up and destroy them, as 
were the companions of Ulysses snatched 
up and devoured by the many-headed 
monster in the straits of Scylla and 
Charybdis. That Hydra is the so- 
called "National Guard" of the several 
states of the American Union. Beware, 
my countrymen, of these armed battal- 
ions! And I shall continue to repeat 
the warning, beware! until this danger- 
ous army of corporation minions is dis- 
banded, the burdens of the toilers are 
made lighter, their rewards made ade- 
quate and the "national health and 
public security made sure by a contented 
and thrifty working class," as General 
Benjamin Harrison, our centennial pres- 
ident, in an eloquent speech at Indian- 
apolis, Ind , Sept. 13, 188ft, said: "A 
contented and thrifty working class," 
said he, "is the surest evidence of na- 
tional health and the best pledge of pub- 
lic security " And in the same speech 
he reminded his hearers of another 
equally important truth. He said: 
"The men who fought the war for the 
Union were its working people. It was 
true of the army as of the kingdom of 
heaven— not many rich" The class of 
men who fought the war for the Union 
may be implicitly relied upon to protect 
the public peace at all times. Let that 
peace then be no longer menaced by the 
bayonets of mercenary detectives and 
armed guards (State Regulars) organ- 
ized and drilled at the expense of the 
toilers, to uphold the tyranny of Cyclo- 
pean corporations— which has been done, 
and for no other purpose— and clearly 
in contravention of our fundamental 
laws, and contrary to the genius of our 
free governments, national and state. 

It is one great aim of this publication, 
in the interest of peace and for the pres- 
ervation of American liberty, to protest 
against the existence of this most dan- 
gerous institution — the National Guard. 
The pen is then here literally arrayed 
against the sword. With an intense 
earnestness the battle will be fought on 
the side of the pen. It is only the an- 
cient liberties of the American people 
that the pen will take shelter behind, 
and the ball and shell and dynamite 



(10) 



bombs it shall use, will be the maxims 
of the founders of American freedom. 

The people left to themselves to rule, 
fairly and honestly permitted to make 
their own laws and to provide for their 
enforcement for the common good, no 
necessity will ever arise for the use of 
armed men. There is positivelv no need 
whatever of any " Governor's Guards,'' 
or any other body of select and spec- 
ially trained troops, outside of the real 
militia — the posse comitates — in Iowa 
or in any other state of the American 
Union; for there will be no rebellion of 
the people against just and equitable 
laws. Tyrants only have use for bat- 
talions of armed mercenaries. 

Shame on all who fear to interpose 
between tyranny and its victims, and 
who hold the garments of those who 
stone to death the martyrs of human 
liberty. I will speak what I believe to be 
truth though the heavens fall. I would 
rather be the martyr upon the scaffold 
than the tyrannous magistrate on the 
bench in whose hands are the keys of 
life and death, but who cowardly shrinks 
from doing his duty in the supreme mo- 
ment and speaks the speech of an imbe- 
cile, yielding to the clamor of the mad 
monopolists for blood, to the cry of "Cru- 
cify him ! Crucify him!" Let us remem- 
ber that there is impending a mighty 
struggle for the emancipation of labor. 
History will repeat itself and martyrs 
will bleed, no doubt; but the cause of 
truth will be vmdicated and the right 
will triumph in the end in spite of the 
fact that 

" Eight is ever on the scaffold ; 
Wrong- is ever on the throne." 

My orotest against the bloody trag- 
edy af November 11, 1887, in Illinois, 
must not be misconstrued. Opposed as 
-. am to John Brownism, that is to say, 
to violent methods of reform, not less 
am I opposed to police- Anarchism, that 
is to say, to the breaking up of public 
deliberative meetings by force of arms. 
This, (if any act of government can be 
so defined),is assuredly just causus belli, 
and should not be tolerated by the 
American people a single moment. Let 
us not, while stopping the little leaks, 
leave the bung of the barrel open. Let 
us not be scared by the cunning cry of 
"dynamite," (a Salem witch scare, a 
sham, cry of "wolf," "wolf"), into sur- 
rendering popular rights. Let the rights 
of free assembly and free speech be main- 
tained at all hazards; for without these 
rights there is no freedom worth the 
naming. As an American, I shall say 
what I think, and I think that the state 
of Illinois is being made th<> battle- 
ground in the war of monopoly against 
the people, and that the laws of Illinois 
are being made siege-guns directed 
against the Fort Sumter of popular 
rights. I believe that the blows that 
fall upon the heads of the so-called "dy- 
namiters" are aimed at the heads of the 



workingmen in general, and that there 
exists a dark and dangerous conspiracy 
of monopoly against labor, and that 
the Pinkerton detectives, armed police- 
men and national guards are the blood- 
hounds of corporation tyrants in this, 
diabolical hunting down of wage slaves, 
inaugurated in Illinois, and meant to be 
made general from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific. 

VI. Essential Parties. 

There are, however, two great dangers- 
that the people must protect the Com- 
monwealth against; and voters without, 
any preconcert of action do naturally 
divide into two great political parties, 
the individual being led by the peculiar 
direction of his own mind to go to the side 
that seems to him most in need of hi& 
protecting arm. Those dangers are (1) 
Anarchy and (2) Despotism. These two- 
patriotic parties were first organized 
one hundred years ago. The leaders on 
the side that first stood guard on the 
watch-towers of the nation, against An- 
archy, were Washington, Adams, Hamil- 
ton and others, known as Federalists. 
The leaders on the other side that first 
stood guard on the watch-towers of the 
nation, against Despotism, were Jeffer- 
son, Henry, Monroe and others, known 
as Anti-Federalists. 

The doctrine of the Federalist was, 
viz: "Good government is a necessity 
to prosperity and peace." The doc- 
trine of the Anti-Federalist was, viz: 
" The less of government the better (for 
liberty), if society be kept at peace.' y 
The watch-dog and the wolf of vEsop — 
the one preferring plenty, ' the other 
freedom. 

These two oiiginal parties of our peo- 
ple have been known by various names 
— Federalists, Whigs, and Republicans on 
the one hand, and Anti-Federalists, Re- 
publicans and Democrats on the other. 
But the parties have remained about 
the same from the beginning until now. 
They are both equally patriotic and 
they are both a necessity. Under the 
rule of the first we have always national 
prosperity: under that of the second 
always (for the majority), individual 
liberty. The Federalists lost power by 
infringing upon personal liberty through 
the passage, in 1798, of the "Alien and 
Sedition Laws;" the Democrats lost 
power by a faction of that party — (the 
disciples of Calhoun) — inaugurating na- 
tional anarchy in 1860," that is' to say, 
secession. 

It was anarchy among the states that 
led in the beginning to the formation of 
the Federal Constitution, that our 
fathers called "the hoops of the barrel;" 
its various clauses being, I suppose, the 
several "hoops." The Anti-Federalisis 
opposed its adoption ; — and they de- 
manded, after it was adopted, that it be- 
<< strictly construed." The faction ol" 



( 11) 



the party that tried to " break the 
hoops off the barrel" by nullification in 
1832, renewed the effort to "backoff 
the hoops" with the tomahawk of seces- 
sion in i860, followed by a four years 
bloody civil war. But the old barrel is 
sound yet in every stave and hoop. The 
Republican party exists to keep the 
hoops on the barrel. 

But the Democratic party exists for 
just as patriotic an end. There is an in- 
herent tendency of society to despotism, 
as there is an inherent counter-tendency 
of society to anarchy. The love of order 
gives rise to the first ; the love of free- 
dom to the second. Nature furnishes a 
parallel in gravity' and centrifugal force. 
Ihese two natural forces exactly bal- 
ancing produce in nature "the music of 
the spheres," and those similar tenden- 
cies in tl e social world, kept at equipoise, 
give rise to social peace and concord. I 
do not believe, as Jefferson did, that it 
was the purpose of Washington a»d 
Hamilton to set up a monarchy; but I 
do believe it possible for the American 
govertment to become a despotism. It 
is, I trust, the glorious mission of the 
Democratic party to prevent this. 

VII. The Paramount Question. 

But the supreme question to be an- 
swered immediately in the minds of the 
workingmen of our country is this, viz: 
To which of these two patriotic parties 
may the wage-workers look for emanci- 
pation ; or may they look to either or 
to both, or may they expect help from 
neither of the "old parties?" Emanci- 
pation of labor must come through the 
co-operation of national and state 
governments in beneficent measures of 
protection of the industrious— encourag- 
ing by bounties, if need be, the building 
up of a system of universal co-operation 
(as national and state governments have, 
by bounties and subsidies, upheld by 
both parties, built up our railroad in- 
dustry), to the end that the producer 
shall not be compelled to go upon the 
market with his labor for sale to the 
hightest bidder, but only with the finish- 
ed products of his labor for sale. The 
selling of labor is, like the selling of the 
laborer, slavery, not in a milder, but 
(when brought to ripeness, as it has been 
brought in Whe coal regions of Pennsyl- 
vania), in a more oppressive form. This 
is the paramount question in American 
politics to-day, and will be so for years 
to come. The party that fails to recog- 
nize this issue will go the way that the 
Whig party went when it failed to recog- 
nize the anti-slavery issue— Webster 
ignoring it in his noted Marshfield speech. 
Party leaders, as they grow old, become 
conservative, looking' backward and not 
forward, while civilization ever advances 
irresistably in a straight line, an new 
issues arise immediately after and old 
issue is buried out of sight. 



The labor pioblem is pressing for solu- 
tion now as the anti-slavery problem 
was in 1860. If the old leaders or party 
will not wake up from their Rip Van 
Winkle sleep, but must still continue to 
be oblivious to the present and to dream 
only of a "dead pasc," the young men, 
North and South, will certainly unfurl 
the starry banner of the republic, in- 
scribed "Protection of Labor," giving 
to that motto a significance in harmony 
with the present age and its needs. It is 
always true that, when the prosperity 
of the masses is demanded, the principles 
of the Federal party become popular 
and are at once brought to the front; 
but, when the liberties of the people are 
endangered by the growth of arbitrary 
power, the principles of the Anti-Federal 
party are, invoked and at once they 
come to the front. Hence we saw in the 
late national election, the so-called "Chi- 
cago Anarchists" vote the Democratic 
ticket, because they rightly believed that 
they had less reason to fear that coer- 
cive laws would be instituted by the 
Democrats than by the Republicans, 
remembering that in obedience to Demo- 
cratic dogma, James Buchanan would 
have seen the Union forever rent in 
twain and anarchy forever prevail, rather 
than resort to coercion. A Democratic 
governor, true to Democratic doctrine 
and practice, would never, I think, have 
permitted the Hay market Anarchists to 
be executed for "Conspiracy against 
Society " — i. e. sedition— as great a mis- 
take of the Republican governor of Illi- 
nois in 1887, I believe, as was the hang- 
ing of John Brown for "treason" against; 
a state of which he was not an inhabi- 
tant,— a fatal mistake of the Whig gov- 
ernor of Virginia in 1859. If ever there 
arise, in the popular mind a general fear 
of despotism, the Democratic party will 
certainly come again into power. 

VIII. The State and the Individual. 

Can the state say "presto" and all 
men thus become at once rich? Clearly 
no. But is it not true that the few ha.ve 
become millionaires by legal enactments? 
As clearly yes. And without coercive 
laws millionaires could not be. The 
many workers would not respect the 
"right" (wrong) of the few idlers (rob- 
bers) "to have and to hold" the accu- 
mulations of the labor of the industrious 
millions, but for coercive laws.* ' How 
long without ceorcive laws, backed by 
the military power of England, the peo- 
ple of Ireland disarmed, would the 
wealth of that rich island be the prop- 

* The pauperism and degradation of the 
English laborer were the result of a series of 
Acts of Parliament and Acts of Government 
whidh were designed or adopted with the ex- 
press purpose of competing the laborer to 
work for the lowest rates of wages possible, 
and which succeeded at last in effecting the 
purpose.— "Six Centuries of Work and Wages- 
in England."— Rogers. 



(12) 



erty \ pi under) of a few alien "robbers of 
widow's houses?" Not a day. Any gov- 
ernment that is not an expression of the 
will of the governed, is tyranny. Any 
industrial system that has to be bol- 
stered up by armed policemen, armed 
guards and armed detectives, "conspir- 
acy laws," the penitentiary and the gal- 
lows, is slavery. No wonder, then, that 
so-called "government" (coercion) has 
become odious to the minds of all work- 
ingmen the world over. The less of such 
government the better. Society need 
not be "kept at peace." Peace is its 
normal condition — all disturbing ele- 
ments being withdrawn. And the great- 
est disturbing element, yea, the sole 
cause of discord and suffering, is the 
avarice oi the few, the insatiable greed of 
a so-called "upper class," like those who 
kept up' the reservoir near Johnstown 
in Pennsylvania for their piscatorial 
amusement, though the lives of multi- 
plied thousands were jeopardized, and 
^finally sacrificed thereby. 

But organized and systematized so- 
ciety is a necessity. This is the Hamil- 
tonian idea of popular government,' viz: 
"Law, the formula (word expression) 
of the harmonious movements of well 
organized society, its motion being in 
accord with the popular will;" which, in- 
deed, is the perfection of human govern- 
ment, all men and all women having 
equal voice in making and executing the 
laws. 

In its advance from the lower to the 
higher stages of civilization, society 
passes inevitably through different con- 
ditions of growth, effete institutions per- 
ishing by a natural law. Thus chattel 
slavery inevitably passed away, and gave 
place to the wage system of industry, 
which is but another form of slavery. 
Wage slavery will as inevitably pass 
away and give place to co-operative in- 
dustry — (the natural system and the 
most "ancient of all.) It is vain to at- 
tempt, by coercion, to stop the progress 
of society.- Trusts are an evidence of 
growth. They will inevitably beextended 
and enlarged with the advance of society, 
either for the benefit of the few, or the 
many, which will be determined by the 
nature of the government. If aristo- 
cratic, or plutocratic, the few will alone 
be benefited by them; if democratic, 
the many. Here, then, is the real ques- 
tion at issue between the many and the 
few: Shall the many rule, or shall the 
lew? That is the supreme question. Let 
the government be democratic and the 
extension and development of the prin- 

* Where the social system is incompatib e 
with the social stae it is plain'yunphi osoph- 
ical and unwis-a to resort to means of compul- 
sion. No ma ter what the power of govern- 
ment or of hum in authority may he, it is im- 
possible for them to stop the intellectual ad- 
vancement, for it forces it* way by an org-an ; c 
law over which they have no kind of control. 
— '•History of the Intellectual Development of 
Europe."— Draper. 



ciple of "trusts" will be brought about 
by the action of the whole people build- 
ing up a grand co operative system of 
production and distribution of products, 
in which all shall have equal .interest — a 
universal " trust "—abrogating private 
ownership, (l)of the medium of exchange, 
(2) of the tools of production, and (3) 
of the lands. 

The people believe in combination. 
Hence exist societies, churches, lodges, 
clubs, unions, corporations, states,— the 
object of each being mutual protection 
of the individual. The more nearly the 
welfare and rights of each individual are 
assured the better for each and all. We 
have "protective" legislation. The 
American people have given a majority 
vote in favor of the policy. Protection 
of the well-being and rights of the toilers 
is the first object of all just government ; 
for the toilers are the ninety-and-nine. 
We have only, then, to resolve that the 
benefits of protection shall be general 
and not particular. This will result 
when wage industry has been superceded 
by co-operative industry. Only through 
protective laws can wage industry be 
made to give way to co-operative in- 
dustry. 

Monopoly, I anticipate, will soon 
break down of its own weight. Since 
my boyhood the whole household econ- 
omy of the American people has under- 
gone a complete revolution, and nothing 
remains as it was forty years ago. So 
must political economy be revolutionized; 
so must social economy be improved 
upon. No naan has a right to more than 
his due proportion of the benefits of 
mechanical inventions — of the spontane- 
ous gifts of nature — or of the benefits of 
legislation. Nature knows no "upper" 
and "lower" (favored and enslaved) 
classes. All are created equal. Society 
will be brought to its natural condition, 
if the people rule. Artificial barriers 
and walls of division will crumble and 
fall down. The many must rule. The 
many will not much longer permit the 
few to hold, by penal enactments, en- 
forced by national guards, detectives and 
policemen, armed and drilled and subject 
to the command of monopoly, the 
ownership and control of the products 
of the labor of the millions ofcfrorkers— 
conceding the right to the few oi the own- 
ership of the lands, mines and machinery, 
and of the ownership and control of the 
medium of exchange. The money of the 
nation— the most important instrument 
of activity and industry— the key to 
prosperity, must be controlled by the 
many forthe common good — the employ- 
ment of labor co-operatively, and the 
equitable distribution of products, so 
that private trusts may no longer exist. 
Let the laws assure to each and every 
human being the fruits of his or ner own 
toil, and like benefits of machinery. The 
people will voluntarily make ample pro- 
vision for the kindly care of all the help- 



\ 



( 13) 



less poor. They will make common the 
ownership o! the soil — of the minerals 
under the earth and of the wealth of the 
seas, lakes and water-courses, common 
the ownership of the tools of production, 
and common the ownership of the great- 
est, the mightiest of all instruments of 
prosperity, the "lawful money of the 
nation." All natural inequalities they 
will level up, making the strong and the 
healthful to be eyes to the blind and 
feet to the lame. They will make ob- 
solete all penal statutes, and crime will 
then cease to be ; for crime is the ripened 
fruit of oppression. 

The people will only allow the exis- 
tence of private corporations for religi- 
ous, moral, philanthropic, educational 
and productive purposes when once the 
people (men and women) rule. And the 
associations for productive purposes 
will be co-operative, e\-ery member of the 
association having like interest in it. 
The laws and governments of states 
and nations will then have bnt one aim, 
viz : The subordination of the rights of 
property to the natural rights of man. , 
To my mind, the present disharmony 
of our social system and the tendency 
of wealth to center in the hands of the 
few, arise from two principal causes: 

1, wage industry; 2, .specie basis 
money. 

A third cause (but it does not affect 
us greatly as yet, but will be unbearable 
bye and bye), is land monopoly. 

'We must advocate then (1) Co-opera- 
tive industry. (2) Lawful money. (3) 
Land limitation. Or we may place our 
demands in the following verbal form : 

1, free tools; 2, free money; 3, free 
lands. 

The growth of trusts is the harbinger 
of the coming day. It implies that the 
competitive system of labor, production 
and distribution of products, is on its 
death-bed. There is nothing left to the 
peoi le to do, but to form a grand trust 
in which every man, woman and child in 
America shall have like interest, arid 
from which like benefit shall result to 
each. We have reached the era of com- 
bination. We have only to ask, how 
shall the ninety-and-nine combine? 

The only way for us to defeat private 
trusts is to build up a great public trust 
that shall%apture all the^esser trusts. 
We cannot go back to the old ways if we 
would. There has now r begun a race on 
the combination track; will the people 
come out ahead? If they do not they 
will be slaves. The question to be an- 
swered is, shall we reach a universal 
trust through evolution, or through 
revolution? 

I think we may reach the goal of uni- 
versal co-operation through evolution, 
with the ballot as our only implement of 
warfare. But the producing class (farm- 
ers, mechanics and wage workers) , must 
unite in one vast union and stand to- 
gether ,* speaking with one voice. 



The railroad corporations are deter- 
mined to give free passes to all legisla- 
tors, judges, etc. Be it so ! Let laws be 
enacted declaring that all officials — "ser- 
vants of the people" — from justice of the 
peace to president of the United States, 
— shall ride free on all railroads. Accom- 
modate the tendency. Make it fit in as 
a part of the social system. "Resist 
not evil," but convert it into good. Out- 
flank the enemy, utilizing ommipotent 
forces. Who could destroy electricity ? 
But it is possible to utilize, for the good 
of markind, what once was considered 
only an evil— a "destructive force" — the 
thunderbolts of Jove. Thus the supre- 
macy of mind over matter is displayed,, 
and of good over evil. 

IX. The Many and the Few. 

I insist, therefore, that the plan of 
campaign which Sherman put in force 
against Johnson, we must adopt against 
trusts, We must outflank them. Na- 
tional wants must be met by national 
means. This is genuine "protection." 
The surplus in the national treasury, 
and new issues of "lawful money" to 
meet all demands and needs of the pro- 
ducers, should be distributed, not to 
national banks, but to the states, to be 
loaned by county treasurers to the farm- 
ers, like* the school fund is loaned 
at a rate of interest not above one per 
cent, per annum, with unlimited time. 
Co-operative manufacturing and co- 
operative mining should be instituted 
by national aids, the factories and 
mines being leased to the workers by the 
government at not above one per cent, 
per annum of cost. Farmers should vote 
tax and build mills, factories, slaughter- 
houses, creameries, etc., etc., as they do 
school houses; operating them under 
supervision of boards of directors, of 
their election, as they now run the- 
schools— to the end of bringing forth fin- 
ished products, and not alone raw ma- 
terial. 

But this great undertaking must be 
preceded by land-limitation laws, for- 
bidding ownership, by corporations, of 
agricultural, grazing and mineral lands, 
and confining the individual owner to 
a reasonable homestead, the govern- 
ment purchasing, at an appraised valu- 
ation, all surplus lands, paying for them, 
in lawful money of the United States, 
and re-selling them on unlimited time 

(annual interest on purchase price not 
above one per cent.) in small home- 
steads to individuals to be occupied and 
tilled by the bonafide purchasers, 
thus abolishing tenant and bonanza 
farming, and making the agriculturists- 
independent, as all producers ought to 
be. 

The gift by the government to national 
bankers of their so-called "currency" 

Unoney) declared by law "receivable" — 
to be used by them until their banking 
busiuess is finally wound up, is clearly a 



r 



(14) 



confiscation of the wealth of the many 
and its gratuitous bestowal on the few- 
robbery of the people to enrich a fav- 
ored class. It is the "sum of all modern 
villainies." In line with it was thedeposit 
by the government of $00, 000, 000 of 
the national surplus, without interest. 
in the vaults of favored banks. 

The United states government is at 
present ahuge machine for robbing the 
many of their wealth and pouring it into 
the store-houses of the few— but. only be- 
cause the few are allowed to control- 
is it so. The government is now, and 
has been for twenty years, controlled 
and med by the money power, with 
headquarters in Lombard street, Lon- 
don, as a supple instrument to oppress 
-and rob the producing masses of our 
country. That power gathers tribute 
from the people of the United States be- 
yond tnat paid by all the world besides; 
the sums derived by England from India, 
Egypt, and British America being not a 
tithe of that paid in interest to the 
money power by our people, which 
amounts to not less than $ 1,500,000,000 
anuually. 

Counting ten million voters in our 
land, this sum equals the average of one 
hundred and fifty dollars per year, or 
twelve dollars and fifty cents per month 
tribute paid by each man that casts a 
ballot in the United States, to the Roth- 
• •childs and Barings and their agents— 
exacted from us on the pretext of sup- 
plying the people a "tool of exchange 
based on gold"— "a dollar worth a hun- 
dred cents"— as foul a robbery, swindle 
and humbug as was ever devised by 
the cuqning ingenuity of man. 

This robbery, I am compelled to be- 
lieve, was designedly brought upon us by 
means of a gigantic conspiracy— the same 
diabolical motives influencing its de- 
signers, and those who voted to execute 
it, and the wicked leaders who carried it 
out— (president, cabinet and congress 
responsible for it) as intluenced of old 
the traitors who bartered away the 
freedom of Ireland and Scotland. 

" The English steel we could disdain 
Secure in valor's station- 
nut English .uohl has been our bane— 
bucli a parcel oi' rogues in a nation." 
—Burns. 

X. The Destiny of Humanity. 

Effect follows cause. The two are in- 
dissolubly cornier (ed by natural law. 
Given the cause and the inevitable effect 
may be foretold with mathematical cer- 
■ tainty. One great change comes and 
other great changes neeessarilv follow. 
i^et one of the planets, for instance, 
Jeaye its prescribed path in the heavens, 
and there will be an immediate change 
Of path of every orb in the universe. So 
the wonderful inventions of the nine- 
teenth century affecting production are 
winging about momentous social changes 
all in #he same direction— all in the 



direction of human advancement. But 
the friction to be overcome is great 
Our civil war was the result of this fric- 
tion. But the car of progress did not 
pause. Hark! how great a noise is 
heard to-day in the labor world, of 
strikes, the shooting down of working- 
men by guards; detectives and police- 
men in arms. It is the creaking of the 
wheels of the great car upon their axles 
heated until they smoke; for the friction 
is as great now, and from the same 
cause, as in L860— the greed of a selfish 
few. What may we expect? Another 
civil Avar? God, forbid! 

Will the enormous "trusts," the im- 
mense combinations and aggregations of 
capital, that have gathered and are still 
gathering in great lumps, as butter gath- 
ers in the churn, will all these be able to 
pool their selfish interests and unite 
against the people in one huge lump, and 
become what the British aristocracv has 
ever been and still is, a banditti ?— a 
cave of robbers? And shall they mar- 
shal armies and dictate the laws,* pres- 
ident and congress, governors and legis- 
latures, and the federal and state courts 
continuing to be ever willing instruments 
in their hands ? Thus has the British 
government, been always a willing and 
supple instrument in the hands of the 
British aristocracy. And the American 
governments, of states and nation, are 
willing and supple instruments in the 
hands of monopoly to-day, and have 
been for many years. 

There is no middle ground to be occu- 
pied now more than there was in 1860. 
The toilers of our country must be either 
absolutely freemen or absolutely slaves. 
There can be no permanent compromise 
on the basis of wage industry. Profit- 
sharing will do,if the profits shared shall 
amount to an equitable division of 
profits, determined by the common 
voice and not fixed by the dictum of a 
"boss"— a petty autocrat. The over- 
grown power of concentrated wealth 
must be neutralized by the votes of the 
toiling many. This can never be done 
in the presence of a great military or- 
ganization like the national guard, 
which will certainly be used by the few 
to enslave the many. Our government 
is rapidly *drifting toward despotism. 
The machinery of coercion is being cau- 
tiously and covertly perfected "so as not 
to arouse opposition." There is danger 
that soon the people will find themselves 
fast bound, hand and foot— prisoners of 
war to a mongrel, Anglo-American aris- 
tocracy. 

Such will inevitably be our lot and the 
condition of master and slave continue 
indefinitely, the few idle reveling in 
luxury, the many industrious groveling 
in poverty, unless by universal suffrage, 
voicing an advanced condition of edu- 
cation and general knowledge of gov- 
ernmental science and social economy 
on the part of the people we may be en- 



k. 



( 15 ) 



abled to hold what the fathers be- 
queathed us — equality of rights. 

These rights we ought surely to main- 
tain and perpetuate through the coming 
generations for at least " a thousand 
years." 

"A thousand years, our own Columbia; 
It is the giad day so long foretold— 
It is the glad morn whose early twilight 
Washington saw in days of old." 

The American masses ought to be ever 
on the alert. They ought not to sleep 
in the presence of the enemy. The Eng- 
lish masses under the leadership of the 
great Gladstone are beginning to arouse 
themselves from the sleep of centuries. 
Soon the workingmen of all nations will, 
I trust, become the world's law-makers. 
Then will the equality of all men and the 
enfranchisement of woman result uni- 
versally. The benefits of mechanical in- 
ventions will become a blessing alike to 
•all. There will be no poor. Each will 
have ample time for mental culture. 
Harmony will prevail. No strikes; no 



scaling down of wages; no enslavement 
of labor; no monopoly of lands; no 
bonanza farms; no capitalists; no usur- 
ers ; rent abolished ; interest abolished ; 
all alike free; all alike rich; no prisons; 
no poor houses;— there will be only co- 
operation. 

Co-operation is as grand a word as 
was ever uttered. God is one. M?n 
shall be one. "'Be ye one as 1 and the 
Father are one" is the divine command. 
This is co-operation. It is oneness — 
unity. What a magnificent meaning has 
our national motto: "E pluribus Unum 
— out of many, one"— when applied to the 
race of mankind. This is the destiny of 
humanity— one family— all working to- 
gether for the special good of each and 
the common good of all— a world-wide 
"trust" — a universal combination of the 
world's workers for the common welfare. 
This is co-operation— the sun-burst of 
democracy — the realization of the dream 
of Jefferson. 



OUR COUNTRY; 

A COMMENCEMENT POEM, BURLINGTON UNIVERSITY, BURLINGTON, IOWA, JUNE 10, 1857, 



On a shore far remote, in days now long past, 
-Soine God-fearing men, whose possessions were 

vast, 
Bade adieu to their homes and fields of bright 

grain, 
In a small ship of burden to cross the rough 

main. 
Nor treasures, nor plunder they sought o'er 

the seas; 
The flag of Religion they spread to the breeze, 
Displaying the motto, expressive and odd,— 
''Rebellion to tyrants is duty to God. 11 
Away from oppress'on and Britain they bore, 
And landed on Holland's republican shore. 

Beyond the broad ocean America lay, 

Where the sun drives his chariot at close of tho 

day; 
Wild men and wild beasts had there their abode; 
But there, too, the Temple of Liberty stood. 
The heroes of faith saw its dome from afar, 
And hailed it again as tbeir beaconing star. 
They are rocked on the bosom of Ocean once 

more; 
Thev come to a bleak and a desolate shore; 
No Dido receives them at Old Plymouth Rock; 
At the portals of no princely mansion they 

knock ; 
Old Boreas, winter-robed, stoops to the strand, 
To welcome the coming of that pilgrim band.' 
O Puritan fathers, your names we revere; 
How great were your labors ar d sufferings here; 
How sorely harrassed by your wild Indian foes; 
How Famine oppressed you with terrible woes! — 
Tour God you heard whisper in every kind 

breeze 
That fanned the old mountains or kissed the 

young trees,— 
"Ye children of Freedom, press on to the prize; 
A glorious nation from you shall arise 1" 

The axe of the woodman advances its strokes ; 

The ioresjt of ages is shorn of its oaks: 

And millions of freemen dwell on the bright 

shore, 
Where the rod of Oppression may reach them no 

more. 

Hermea, lovely maiden, In sleep-mantled, rest, 
Once dreamed that a serpent lay coiled on her 

breast; 
Igo dreams of dread reptiles our fathers harrassed 
JBut wopee than a Hydra assailed them at last,— 



A desperate tyrant, whose treacherous aim 
Was the spirit of freedom to thoroughly tame. 
Go tame the proud bison, the prairie that roams ; 
Tame him as he breathes the fr>.e air of our 
homes. 



"Brother, please hand me my scabbard and 

knife; 
I go to the conflict; I'm bound for the strife! — 
Dearest maiden, cease weeping; good mother 

farewell , 
Those proud British foemen I, too, must help 

quell; • 

I know my loved sisters may suffer for bread; 
I know, too, my father all gory lies dead! 
Did not he with brav^ Warren,' the last on the 

field, 
His life for his children most willingly yield? 
Shall I, proudly boasting his blood in my veins, 
Shrink back while a hope for my country re- 
mains? 
Away to our chieftain, my steed must be fleet! 
The chieftain so gallant at Braddock's defeat! 
Bold hearts now assemble; their swords glittter 

bright; 
They go where he leads in defense of the right, 
'Neath the ensign of freedom— the eagle on 

high— 
To conquer, and triumph, or willingly die! 1 ' 

'•Go, son, saith the matron, go join in the strife; 
She sends you who loves you, who gave you your 

life,;— 
'Gainst famine eyer trusting in Him, we'll be 

found, 
Who cares for the" sparrow that falls to the 

ground 
This Bible take with you wherever you roam, 
That God may protect you and guide you safe 

home, 
If not to our dwelling on earth here of^love, 
To a mansion more pleasing in Heaven above." 

What tyrant e'er conquered a spirit like this ? 
What Gesler could humble brave Tell of the 

Swiss ? 
No bravery or fortitude ever was shown, 
By any bold people, surpassing our own; 
Of the dread British Lion they humbled the 

pride, 
The monster Oppression fell gasping and died, 



f 



( 16 ) 



And reward for their labors thus fully they 

gained ; 
The great *• Declaration of Freedom' 1 main- 
tained! 
They said, " We have triumphed , this land is our 

own; 
But then must there here be established a 

throne '? 
How soon would we rue that perfidious power! 
How soon would be bantshed lroni Freedoms 

fair bower! 
Contempla'e the picture, instructive and true. 
That paget? hittoric exhibit to view! 
Behold there all Monarchy shrouded in gloom, 
And grim Aristocracy, black as the tomb! 
At ihe top of the canvas old Greece stands alone. 
Oh gaze on her splendor that for ages has shone 
The light of the world! the pride of mankind! 
How grand and how glorious! of all most re- 

fintd! 
There thought was unfettered; all the land a 

great school,— 
Man rese to perlection. Why ?— The people bore 

rule! 
Look, too, at proud Rome, the Plebian in power, 
Subduing the world, as it were, in an hour ! 

But the child of their choice does monarchs amuse! 
So led are our fathers a Republic to choose; 
For the day it shall die and be cast in the sea, 



They plan for themselves quite a grand jubii 

lee. 
Since then the " weak babe" has a Hercules 

grown ; 
At bis look now dread Monarchy quakes on her 

throne; 
A giant Antieus in his arms has been crushed* 
The voice ol Oppression to silence ie hushed; 
The world, we may say, he bears up with all 

ease; 
Golden apples are snatched from the Hesper- 

ides,— 
Golden apples of freedom, fairest fruit ever 

known, 
Through him shall all nations receive as their 

own! 

My Country, I love thee, thy prairies and hills j 
Thy broad, flowing rivers and murmuring rills; 
Thy greatness be sung to the true poet's lyre. 
In strains that such Ireedom alone can inspire! 1 
American youth, behold where you stand ! 
To you must be given the care of this land! 
Prepare for your calling; be worthy the trust; 
Let not our proud banner be trailed in the dustt 
•Then banish ambition, and avarice, and pride, 
That a true public spirit may ever abide. 
'Twas the loss of this anchor that sunk mighty 

Rome. 
Be ever, Columbia, tke patriot's home! 



ESSAY II.— THE BONDAGE OF THE MANY. 



I. The Loyalty of Labor. 

The words of Cardinal Gibbons, Arch- 
bishop of Baltimore, in his letter to the 
Roman propaganda, defining the pur- 
poses and aims of the order of Knights 
of Labor, dated February 10, 1887, are 
a most just and timely tribute to the 
poor toilers of our country, who by the 
tyranny of combined capital are menaced 
with a bondage more oppressive than 
chattel slavery itself . He "says: "It- is 
a fact, well known, that the poor toilers 
have no inclination to resist or break 
the laws of the land, but simply to ob- 
tain equitable legislation by constitu- 
tional and legitimate means.'' 

The " poor toilers, " let it be borne in 
mind, are the so-called "dangerous 
class" that the worshippers of Mammon 
have armed the national guard in all the 
states of the Union to overawe, and 
hold, by means of Gatling guns and re- 
peating rifles, in subjection to the 
"rich man " in authority. In the words 
of that same patriotic prelate : "It will 
suffice," he says, "to mention the fact 
that monopolies, not only by individ- 
uals, but corporations" also, have 
already excited complaints from the 
workingmen and opposition from pub- 
lic men and national legislators as well ; 
that the efforts of those monopolists, 
not always unsuccessful, to control legis- 
lation for their own profit, cause a 
great deal of anxiety to the disinterested 
friends of liberty ; that their heartless 
avarice— which, to increase their revenues, 
ruthlessly crushes not only the working- 
men representing the various trades, but 
even the women and the young children 
in their employ, makes it plain to all who 
love humanity and justice that not only 
the workingman has a right to organize 
for his own protection, but that it is the 



duty of the public at large to aid him in 
finding a remedy against the dangers 
with which civilization and social order 
are menaced by ayarice, oppression and 
corruption." 

The "common people" speak with one 
voice for peace, progress, enlightenment 
philanthrophy, unity, brotherhood, self- 
sacrifice, honesty, devotion, and what- 
ever else is approved of God. Nothing 
is upheld, applauded or perpetuated by 
the voice of the people that the people 
believe to be wrong. The majority ap- 
prove what is right, love what is right, 
and do what is right as far as they have 
knowledge of the right; and when they 
have seemed to approve what is wrong, 
love what is wrong, or have done what 
is wrong, it was when they were deceived 
into believing the wrong to be right. 
Upon this Gibralter of truth is built the 
impregnable fortress of democracy. The 
millennial day will dawn on the world 
when the people truly govern, when the 
common opinion is registered in the laws; 
not the average opinion of any one class, 
or select part of the population, but that 
of all men and all women. This average 
opinion of all will be the nearest approach 
to perfect government that mankind can 
ever reach— enlightened, let me al ways- 
insist, by the divine precepts of the New 
Testament.J 

Many good people (active, earnest and 
patriotic) are too busy with material 
things to give due consideration to the 
hidden movement, which we term "the 
onward march of civilization." But 
what is civilization? It is the ripening 

^Through all the successive conditions the 
criterion of truth is ever advancing- in precis- 
ion aud power, and the maximum is found in 
the unanimous opinion of the whole human 
race.-"lntellectual Development of Europe." 
— Draper. ^ 



^ 



(17) 



of humanity. Reform is the breaking 
away of the clouds of sefishness that 
have prevented the light and warmth of 
the "Sun of Righteousness" from mel- 
lowing the beautiful fruitage of the 
garden of God— the world of humankind. 
The ideas that beam from the sermon 
of Jesus on the Mount are the source of 
modern civilization. They antagonize 
war, cruel punishment and the lust of 
gain. It is the leaven of his loye that 
has expanded the common conscience, 
rendering chattel slavery intolerable, 
wage slavery an incongruity, and that as- 
sures to' the toilers of all nations the 
speedy inauguration of co-operative in- 
dustry, universally. The "New Repub- 
lic" is the brotherhood a>d sisterhood 
of the human race, a civilized world liv- 
ing under the shadow of the Tree of Lib- 
erty—the fulfillment of the prophecy of 
the American bard concerning the in- 
crease of the stars of our flag: 

"And those stars shall increase till the full- 
ness of time 
Its millions of cycles has run- 
Till the world shall have welcomed its mission 
sublime 
And the nations of earth shall be one " 

— Cutter. 

I deny that there would be wars if the 
people absolutely governed. I deny that 
there exists in any country a "danger- 
ous class," if the lust of gold and the lust 
of power were extinguished in the hearts 
of the selfish few that have usurped the 
government of the world and enslaved 
the peace-loving many. I maintain that 
the poor workers (like those wantonly 
shot down at St. Louis) are as harmless 
as the lamb in the presence of the wolf, 
until driven to frenzy and despair by 
outrageous oppression ; and that armed 
interference, by the authorities of city or 
state in the disputes between employers 
and employed, is unbearable tyranny — 
the climax of wrong. 

The employer calls on the governor 
for help, and national guards are sent, 
nominally to "preserve the. peace," but 
really to defeat the workingmen, and for 
this object alone they are called out, and 
for this object alone has the national 
guard come into existence in the United 
States. 

The king of Great Britain made war 
upon our fathers, instead of granting 
them justice. blind worshipers of 
force, do not, I entreat, bid defiance to 
the lessons of history! Whence came 
the brave men that carried the stars 
and stripes to triumphant victory in 
the war of 1776? in that of 1812? and 
in that of 1861 ? They came from the 
farm, forge and factory. Under the burn- 
ing sun of summer, in the glare of the 
furnace, and amid the din of machinery, 
inured to toil— disciplined in the school 
of labor: behold invincible, incorrupti- 
ble men— in the grandest sense of the 
word, 



" Men, high-minded men. 
With powers as far above dull brutes endued 

lu forest, brake and den. 
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude; 

Men who their duties know, 
And know their rights, and knowing, dare 
maintain, 

Prevent the long-aimed blow, 
And crush the tyrant while they rend the 
chain.' 1 

1 1. Confidence in the People. 

The foundation principle of the Amer- 
ican government is confidence in the peo- 
ple. All rights are inalienable that be- 
long to them, including the right "to 
keep and bear arms." To say that a 
public officer can declare any right of 
. the many null, is to place him above the 
people. All officials are their servants. 
The people are king and lord, and their 
rights are paramount. 

But little by little the power of the 
people is being undermined and the 
power of the official class strengthened. 
The moment the machinery of state, 
manipulated by the official class, be- 
comes more powerful Ithan the people, 
will liberty inevitably perish. Hence no 
standing army can be legally "kept up 
in time of peace" in any state of the 
American Union. Hence to disarm the 
people (the real militia) forbidding them 
to "parade or drill with, arms in their*.' 
hands, without license of the governor/ 
and at the same time keeping up a stand 
ing army of "state regulars" in time of 
peace, is to strike a dagger deep into 
Liberty's heart — is revolution. 

And right there I indict the monopolies 
that have grown so great in our country 
that legislatures, governors, and judge 
of courts have become their obedient 
tools —I indict them before the bar of 
the people for the crime of "conspiracy" 
to overthrow democratic liberty. I 
charge them with having already over- 
thrown it in the establishment of a 
standing army in every state of. the 
union, having clothed the governors 
with dictatorial powers, and having 
armed a select band of state regulars, 
enlisted for five years, paying them to 
parade and drill in time of peace, con- 
trary to the express provisions of the 
state constitutions— our fundamental 
laws. 

It was believed by the fathers of the 
republic that the government, about to 
be established by them, would rest in 
the affections ot all its citizens, secure 
from domestic violence.. They laid down 
the axiom, as its chief corner stone, that 
if "government be not s'ecure from do- 
mestic violence without the menace of 
a standing army, it is because it fails to 
protect the rights of the many." 

If the rights of the many were at all 
times and everywhere impartially pro- 
tected, there would be neither civil wars, 
strikes nor discords among men, and 
crimes of all kinds would cease. And 
the^ also declared, "any government 



r 



(18) 



that cannot be maintained without a 
standing army, ought to go down." And 
the same thing may be said of institu- 
tions of every kind. If the wage system 
of industry, for instance, cannot be kept 
aliye without national guards, armed 
detectives and armed policemen, then 
let the wage system perish and a better 
(co-operation) take its place. "The less 
of government the better," said Jeffer- 
son, "if society be keptat peace." Here, 
I think, he meant by the word "govern- 
ment" not "the democratic system or 
polity of a free state," but the exercise 
of authority — in a word, coercion. 

The two words, "government" and 
"law," are very indefinite in meaning, 
as commonly used. Government in Ire- 
land is coercion and law is oppression. 
According to Jefferson, government, to 
be " sacred," is a democratic polity, and 
law the "states, collected will." Any 
statute that is not a clear expression of 
the "will of the governed," is tyranny. 
So-called "laws" may be formally passed 
by corrupt influences. Such measures 
have no sacredness, no binding torce; 
but it is the duty of the "people to alter 
or abolish them," "Let there be only 
police," he said, "to keep order, other- 
wise, no interference with and no control 
of the individual, except by appeals to 
his reason and conscience." 

The advancement of society from bar- 
barism to civilization has caused many 
things that once were considered right, 
to be now considered wrong, viz: the 
eating of human flesh, the drinking of 
alcoholic liquors as a beverage, the hold- 
ing of chattel slaves, etc.; and as a con- 
sequence, he who would now open a shop 
for the sale of human flesh for food, or 
of alcoholic liquors for drink, or a mart 
for the.Duying andjselling of slaves, would 
be justly criminal, as truly so as a thief 
or murderer. 

"Social order in a free country is the 
result of equilibrium of interests and not 
of coercion," is another axiom of the 
father's creed. 

This last expresses a very important 
truth, throwing great light upon the pres- 
ent deplorable condition of our society, 
revealing the cause of the anti-demo- 
cratic tendency of political affairs in our 
country to-day, if the following corol- 
lary, deduced logically from that axiom, 
be considered in the same connection, 
viz: whenever the few become very rich 
and the many very poor, as has been the 
condition of European society for a 
thousand years and aa ia rapidly be- 
coming that of American society to~-day, 
and the producers of wealth have been 
impoverished through usury, through 
rent, through the enslavement of labor 
or through exorbitant taxation by petty 
corporations and the state, or through 
all of these causes combined, coercion 
will creep in as sure as cause produces 
effect, and, as a consequence, popular 
liberty will ceaae to exist. The same 



cause operating here as in Europe will 
certainly produce the same effect here as 
in Europe; hence, we see whv a national 
guard has come into existence in these 
states,contrary to the express pro visions 
of our fundamental laws that forbid the 
organization and maintenance of a 
standing army in time of peace. 

Society advances. Institutions are 
fixed. Society constantly outgrows in- 
stitutions. Our Federal Constitution has 
been "amended" time and again to 
adapt it to the advanced growth of 
society. The object of coercive govern- 
mental machinery, like that in operation 
in Ireland, is to hold society to a fixed 
condition, which is as impossible to do 
as it is to stop the motion of the planets 
by any machinery man may construct 
for that purpose. The civil war was 
brought on to perpetuate chattel slavery 
—an outgrown institution. The ma- 
chinery of coercio n;/. e., guards, detec- 
tives and armed police, is fitted up to 
perpetuate wage slavery, which is also 
outgrown. 

As long as the government and the 
people were one and the same thing, a 
standing army was clearly out of place; 
but when (as we see it now) , the govern- 
ment and the people have become, de 
facto, two separate and distinct things, 
a standing army to hold the people (the 
so-called "dangerous class") in subjec- 
tion to the government (the monopo- 
lists) is clearly a logical necessity to the 
continued maintenance of such an un- 
happy state of society. All'history shows 
that wealthy monopolists hesitate not a 
moment to trample upon all laws, hu- 
man and divine, and to even sacrifice 
the lives of the people, without stint, to 
maintain their hateful supremacy over 
the many whom they have robbed and 
enslaved. Who can forget how the 
sacred tribunes — the immortal Gracchi 
— were murdered by the senators of old 
Eome? and who has not read of the hate- 
ful "conspiracy laws" of good old mother 
England of the centuries happily 
passed ?* 



♦By construction of law the offense of conspir- 
acy, which was originally a combination for the 
purpose of bringing faise evidence against others, 
or for the purpose of subsequently committing a 
crime, was extended to those associations of 
workmen, whose purpose it was to raise the 
rate of wages by such combination, for the whole 
basis of the practice on the subject appears to 
be inferential from the statute of Edward VI., 
under which penalties are inflicted on those who 
combine not to do work, except at a certain 
price and for a certain time; and for implied 
violations of the 18th, 19th and 20th clauses of 
the Act of Elizabeth, which must be forced in 
order to bear such a construction. But at the 
conclusion of the eighteenth century an Act of 
Parliament was carried, which declares all con- 
tracts, except between master and man, for ob- 
taining advances of wage8,altering the usual time 
of working, decreasing the quantity of work and 
the like, illegal. Worklngmen who entered into 
such illegal combinations are punishable by 
imprisonment, and a similar punishment Is in- 
flicted on those who enter into combinations to 
procure an advance of wages, or seek to prevent 



k, 



( 19 ) 



Standing armies are organized to sup- 
press freedom, never to preserve it. 
When all are free and equal, as our fath- 
ers were, each is a law unto himself and 
a pillar of state— grateful to his beloved 
country as was Washington, for the op- 
portunities enjoyed of manifesting his 
inviolable attachment to her by "ser- 
vices, faithful and persevering." 

Give us back again that perfect free- 
dom and equality that prevailed in the 
northern states of our confederacy even 
thirty years asro, and there will be no 
more demand for a national guard to 
preserve order in these states now than 
there was tnen, when the patriotism of 
the northern people was a sufficient 
guaranty o! the public security and 
the preservation of the Union, men- 
aced by the chattel slave-drivers, 
influenced ' by avarice, ambition and 
madness, as" the public security and 
peace are menaced to-day by the wage 
slave-drivers, influenced by the same 
unworthy motives, in the wicked at- 
tempt they are making to destroy popu- 
lar liberty and inaugurate bayonet rule 
in the United States, like Britain's iron 
rule of Ireland. 

.Standing armies have always served to 
give minorities control over majorities. 
We may know when democratic govern- 
ment is falling into decay by the growth 
of a standing army. As soon as the 
army becomes powerful enough to hold 
the many in subjection to the few will 
democratic government end in the United 
States, as elsewhere it has uniformly, 
lor the same cause, ended. 

III. A Gun Above the Cabin Door. 

To be prepared to protect our homes 
and our rights is the surest guaranty of 
peace as well as of freedom. Hence, our 
fathers declared "the right of the people 
to keep and bear arms shall not be in- 
fringed." They meant to have the people 
armed and the state disarmed; hence, they 
-allowed to every man, as an unquestion- 
able right, a gun above his cabin door. 
Days were set apart for general yearly 
muster of the whole male population of 
military age. They meant by a' 'well train- 
ed militia" a whole people drilled in mili- 
tary tactics. Thus was the "govern- 
ment" (the people) prepared for self- 
defense. But they considered the govern- 
ment (the people) unsafe in the presence 
of a standing army, however small; 
therefore, the patriots of the last genera- 
tion, who had made for themselves 
happy homes on the beautiful and boun- 
tiful prairies of Iowa, confident of the 
inherent strength of democratic institu- 
tions, unmenaced by the bayonets of a 

other workmen from hiring themselves or pro- 
curing them to quit their employment. Meet- 
ings and combinations for effecting such pur- 
pose are punishable in like manner, and offend- 
ers who inform against their associates are to be 
^indemnified.— "Six Centurif s of Work and Wages 
in England.' 1 — Roueks. 



hireling soldiery, declared in the bill of 
rights of the free constitution of our be- 
loved state, "No standing army shall be 
kept up by the state in time of peace ; 
and in time of war no appropriation for a 
standing army shall be for a longer time 
than two years." And the constitution 
of the United States forbids the states 
to keep troops in time of peace "with- 
out the consent of congress." Iowa can- 
not legally keep troops in time of peace 
at all. But the governor of our state in 
a late public address, announced that 
the Iowa National Guards are as well 
drilled as regulars of the United States 
Army ; that the six regiments under his 
command can be concentrated at the 
capital of the state at any time in twelve 
hours, and that they are kept up by a 
biennial appropriation of money by the 
state legislature. Just the other day an 
order was drawn on the Treasurer of 
State for $25,000, to pay the Iowa Na- 
tional guard for drilling at the encamp- 
ment lately held at Keokuk. Those ac- 
quainted with Iowa law ask, why is this 
army kept up ? What right b as the legis- 
lature, (they further ask,) to appropri- 
ate even a single cent of the peoples' 
money to keep up an armed force in the 
time of peace? The legislators, openly, 
at the dictation of monopoly, do what 
the members know they have no con- 
stitutional right to do; and the corrupt 
courts, in obedience to the command of 
monopoly, set aside and trample upon 
the will of the people, even though it 
had been expressed by a popular vote 
in a non-partisan election, as when the 
supreme court of Iowa set aside the pro- 
hibition amendment, nullifying design- 
edly the supreme law of the state, the 
people's spoken will. 

A standing army of six regiments 
(more formidable and far more danger- 
ous to the liberties of the people than an 
army of fifty regiments, I may truly 
say, would have been before the day of 
railroads and telegraphs) , is now kept up 
in Iowa contrary to law, and paid by 
the state to drill in time of peace — what 
for? To hold the people fast bound 
hand and foot in chains to the char- 
iot wheels of monopoly, and for no 
other conceivable rational purpose. 
*But if each and every man in America 
feo-day, able to bear arms, was the pos- 
sessor of a good repeating rifle and a 
thousand rounds of fixed ammunition (as 
it is his right to be) and all were organ- 
ized into volunteer militia companies, 
regiments and battallions, and were well 
drilled under officers of their own choos- 
ing (as it is their legal privilege to be, 
and as the fathers designed they should 
be, and, I will add, as they ought to be), 
no power on earth, foreign or domestic, 
could overthrow the government of the 
people. This our fathers foresaw when 
they embodied in the fundamental law 
the "right of the people to keep and 
bear arms" and instituted the general 



( 20 ) 



yearly muster of all able bodied men be- 
tween the ages of eighteen and forty-five 
years. 

But if we have indeed come upon a 
time when the people have been by law 
forbidden to "parade, drill or appear 
in procession with arms in their hands 
without license of the governor," and 
there has been organized in the United 
States a standing army of two hundred 
and fifty thousand well-drilled soldiers 
(under the cloak of "militia"— a false 
name), that.the monopolists can and do 
control and use to shoot down inoffen- 
sive workingmen, women and children, 
who dare to raise their voices against the 
tyranny of combined capital, then in- 
deed are our liberties dangerously 
menaced . 

I contend that the national guaid, 
kept up at no inconsiderable cost to 
state and nation, exists as. an institu- 
tion in Iowa, in direct violation of the 
letter of our state constitution as well 
as of the spirit of our free institutions, 
and of the genius of our democratic 
government itself,— and the same is un- 
questionably true of this guard in everv 
state of the Union. Whatever words 
may be employed to correctly define a 
"standing army" defines correctly the 
national guard. Calling it "militia" is 
surely a misnomer. There is no essen- 
tial difference in their make-up from that 
of four-filths of the brigades and regi- 
ments of the great standing armies of 
Germany, Eussia and Austria. Besides 
they are paid higher wages in this state, 
while on duty and in encampment, than 
was ever before paid.to mercenary troops 
by any government on earth. When a nd 
where were private soldiers ever paid be- 
fore for service "on duty and in encamp- 
ment" at the rate of one dollar and fiftv 
cents per day each, or forty-five dollars 
per month, besides clothing and rations? 
A standing army of national guards 
will bear down upon the people as heav- 
ily under the false name of "militia" as 
under their true name of " mercenary 
state regulars." The volunteer militia 
of the north won laurels in the civil war 
enduring all kinds of hardships for a pit- 
tance of pay (not exceeding twenty cents 
per daj , gold.) They fought as true pat- 
riots, not for "sordid pay." To be a 
soldier of the Union was something hon- . 
orable, and the people came to look 
kindly upon the soldier's office. But the 
patriot must now say to the people, be- 
ware! Look through the thin veil of 
deception and fraud thrown over the 
face of the mercenary guard, and you 
will see that guard a "Praetorian band" 
— corporation minions. 

What a contrast between the pay of 
the Iowa volunteers of the late war and 
that of the Iowa national guard of to- 
day, as well as between the hard service 
of the former abroad and the easy ser- 
vice of the latter at home. But there 
has been no sudden conversion of our 



Jaw makers (let me say) into lovers of 
the citizen soldiers. On the contrary,, 
the same code of Iowa declares that the 
real and only correctly named "militia" 
when called out "shall receive the same 
pay as regulars of the United States 
army." A bill now (March, 1887) is be- 
fore "the legislature of Illinois to pay 
each of the privates of the national 
guard of that state while on duty, two 
dollars per diem, or sixty dollars per 
month. Why? Manifestly that the ranks 
of the guard may ba filled, when occasion 
calls, with mercenary cut-throats, hireling 
"detectives," from the slums of the large 
cities, to shoot down inoffensive workers, 
men, women and children, as has already 
been done by them on several occasions; 
paid by the corporations five dollars 
per day and shielded from deserved pun- 
ishment, by their money freelv bestowed 
in the employment of the best lawyers 
of the nation in their defence, for any 
cold-blooded and unprovoked murders 
of innocent people they may commit — 
people who may have happened to 
come in range of their repeating rifles 
(of the latest pattern, and furnished 
them by the corporation kings), as at 
St. Louis recently and, later still, in New- 
Jersey, where they wantonly shot and 
killed an inoffensive school boy, with 
the manifest design of thereby creating a 
"riot" that might give them a pretext 
for a wholesale massacre of working- 
men, and so (in the interest of the em- 
ployers of labor) to put a bloody period 
to a "strike," and thus teach the work- . 
ers a "wholesome lesson" of obedience 
and subordination to the "rich man.'-' 

No necessity exists nor even a plausi- 
ble pretext for the establishment of this* 
mercenary armed national guard, especi- 
ally since so many of the voters of our 
country, north and south, have had 
military training in actual service on a 
hundred battle fields of the late war. 
Our homes, wives and children are un~ ' 
questionably safe in the presence of 
those hardy veterans without our being: 
obliged to wickedly nullify the constitu- 
tion of the state and subvert free govern- 
ment itself to keep up a standing army 
of mercenaries in time of peace. 

By whose dictation was the national 
guard organized ? Not by the will of the 
people of the United States. What 
farmer, what laborer, what mechanic of 
our country ever signed a petition to 
the legislature of any state asking for its 
establishment? This movement to de- 
stroy our liberties was born of a con- 
spiracy of alien monopolists, to carry 
out their long contemplated purpose, so 
often and so insolently proclaimed 
through the venal metropolitan press of 
our country, to establish a "stronger 
government" here, that is to say, a mili- 
tary despotism. The organization is 
British in its origin— built up in obedi- 
ence to the behests of English capitalists,, 
owners of railroad bonds and stock in. 



(21 ) 



American mines and manufactories, in 
order to keep in awe the wage workers of 
our countrv. 

" But," it is asked, "are not the guards 
of our own sons?" At present the sons 
of many well meaning people, misappre- 
hending the object of the institution, 
have, I admit, enrolled themselves— "en- 
listed for five years" in this "standing 
Army of state regulars." Good soldiers 
know only obedience. The standing 
army of Germany is made up of the sons 
of the German people whom it holds in 
•chains. The Indians (savages we call 
them) would have ever lived at peace 
with their white brethren, if the policy 
of William Fenn toward them had been 
the policy ol all oiir people— a policy of 
justice and equity; but the regular army 
has been to them, like Atilla to the peo- 
ple of southern Europe of old— "the 
scourge of God." The national guard 
will, I verily believe, prove to be a scourge 
of God to the people of the United 
States, if not speedily disbanded, and 
the laws establishing it wiped from the 
statute books forever. 

IV. Noble Ends by Peaceful Means. 

The platform of principles of the 
Farmers' National Alliance of the United 
States, adopted by them in national 
-convention last fall (1886) contains the 
following clause : 

"Resolved, that the farmers, together 
with all other producers, should exert 
the political influence of their great 
numerical strength to thwart the increas- 
ing danger to the individual and public 
interests, which comes from the unre- 
strained greed of the influential Anar- 
chists who defy law and trample upon 
the principles of justice in their methods 
of acquiring the wealth that others 
create, and the less influential, but more 
demonstrative Anarchists, who through 
speeches and dynamite boldly proclaim 
their contempt of law, order, human life 
and individual rights." 

The farmers have a most correct 
opinion and idea of the sordid monopo- 
lists. "Influential" indeed they are, 
since presidents, and governors, con- 
gresses and legislatures stand ready to 
do their bidding. "Anarchists" indeed 
they are, because they expect by violent 
means of organized armies, and "con- 
spiracy laws" to maintain their hateful 
supremacy over the oeople of the United 
States. 

The dynamite bomb is the weapon of 
despair. American workingmcn have not 
reached the plane of despairyet. Amer- 
ican workers of all classes still feel con- 
fident of their ability, through the me- 
dium of party organization, free speech, 
free ballot and a just and fair count of 
votes, to redeem their country from the 
rule of alien monopolists ("influential 
-anarchists"), that have secured their 
present hateful, but I trust, temporary 



supremacy over the American producers 
and laborers by hoodwinking the masses, 
through the agency of a venal party 
press and a system of wholesale corrup- 
tion and bribery of party leaders, and 
to secure such reforms as our christian 
civilization and the social progress of 
the age demand. " Noble ends by peace- 
ful means," is the voice of the native 
toilers of the United States. "Let no 
John Browns be hung, no martyr blood 
be shed Under the forms of law," is, also, 
I believe, their unanimous decree. 

V. Tee Designs of Monopoly. 

What the " influential anarchists' 
(monopolists) mean to do is no secret- 
The huge standing army of national 
guards, the bloodhounds of corporate 
tyranny, I call them, so stealthily or- 
ganized by those heartless conspirators 
against democratic liberty, and that 
number to-day, in the several states of 
the Union, more than a quarter of a 
million of well drilled and superbly 
armed and gorgeously equipped soldiers, 
is intended solely, by those conspirators, 
to be used to silence the just demands 
of the workers for higher wages and 
shorter hours of labor, to prevent social 
progress, to stop intellectual advance- 
ment by means of compulsion. 

A United States " encampment" (con- 
vention; of officers of the national guard 
of the several states of the Union was 
held at Washington in December, 1885. 
A press dispatch says]: "General Ha,rt- 
ranft made a speech, in which he cau- 
tioned cautious action, so as not to 
arouse opposition." Does not this go 
to show that the secret building up and 
strengthening of this gigantic military 
power, is a movement, not of the people, 
butofaclsss? "Cautious action, so as not 
to arouse opposition" of whom? The 
people, of course. The same dispatch 
goes on to say, "The committee ap- 
pointed to draft a bill for presentation 
to congress for the benefit of the na- 
tional guard, submitted a message pro- 
posing an appropriation by the national 
government of a million dollars annu- 
ally, and providing for its expenditure 
for equipments, ammunition, tents, or- 
dinance stores, and camp equipage, to be 
distributed only among the uniformed 
militia (national guard) of the several 
states ■" This is significant when we con- 
sider that, even in freedom-loving Jowa, 
the real militia, the people are forbidden 
by law to "parade, drill or appear in 
procession, with arms in their hands, 
without license of the governor, except," 
says the code, that " members of benev- 
olent organizations may wear swords." 

A facetious newspaper editor, the late 
J. M. Dixon, of Des Moines, repeatedly, 
through the local columns of the Iowa 
Citizen, in the early days of Iowa's his- 
tory, used to "most respectfully and 
humbly petition the legislature of the 



(22) 



state," to pass a law "for the protection 
of dogs against the ravages of sheep." 
Plainly the national guard was institu- 
ted to protect the monopolists against 
the ravages of the people, else why are 
the people disarmed? But the "mem- 
bers of benevolent organizations may 
wear swords." So, possibly, without 
greatly endangering the thrones of the 
Cyclops (the hugt corporation kings that 
rule America), the old Union soldiers do- 
miciled in Iowa, sixty thousand strong, 
members of grand army posts, (a " be- 
nevolent organization,") have been con- 
descendingly granted, by the grace of the 
monopolists, the "privilege" of "wear- 
ing sworde," but the guns, that in their 
hands saved the life of the republic, 
they may not, even on the Fourths of 
July, or the anniversaries of the great 
victories won by their valor, legally 
carry " without license of the governor;" 
while the red-eyed and bloody-mouthed 
dogs of the corporations, the national 
guard, because of their carefully sharp- 
ened teeth, whetted expressly to tear the 
flesh of workingmen, women and little 
children, were looked upon" with pride" 
by a, former executive of our state} for 
in his biennial message of 1SS4, Gov- 
ernor Sherman says: "lam proud of 
the national guard. Their correctness in 
drill and in all the maneuvers of field and 
garrison can scarcely be equaled by vet- 
eran troops, compelling even the warm 
endorsement of officers of the United 
States army."* 

While our worthy governor may have 
fancied he saw in "the superb organiza- 
tion and drill of our Praetorian guard, 
good reason for pride on his part, it may 
be a good reason for a very different feel- 
ing on the part of a liberty-loving people, 
jealous of their rights, and remembering 
always that republics are never over- 
thrown, except by military power. I sup- 
pose that the colonial governor of Mass- 
achusetts, General Gage, in 1775, could, 
and perhaps did, give to the British min- 
istry the same reasons why he was 
"proud" of the brigades encamped on 
Boston Common. But Otis and War- 
ren, and Adams, and Hancock, and Put- 
n&m, and the other proscribed patriots 
of that day, did not see it in the same 
light with the governor of Massachu- 
setts. 

They did not like to be pushed and 
shoved about with the butts of muskets 
and the points of bayonets, though the 
Redcoats were "correct in drill and in 
all the maneuvers of field and garri- 
son," — the question being not " are they 
correct in drill?" but, why are they 
drilled ?— and that is the question now 
before the people of America. 

I understand that the Secretary of 

*The Pennsylvania guard " have the same 
uniform as the regular array, the same musk- 
ets and the same discipline, and Penns* lvania 
could send verygood soldiers; to the field in 
tw< nty-four hours fit to r-e brigaded with reg- 
ulars.— GSN. W. '1 . SUEEMAN. 



War at Washington (1889) has offered 
to furnish every college that will organ- 
ize a company of guards (of monopry) 
a Gatling gun and a hundred and fifty 
repeating rifles. Unfortunately, "stri- 
kers" are usually too poor to give their 
sons a "college education," hence "col- 
lege boys" are presumed to be excellent 
material for an army ready and willing 
to shoot into crowds of "strikers," and 
put down so-called "labor riots." Any- 
organized protest of wage workers 
against enslavement, is considered by the 
monopolists a "labor riot," to be sup- 
pressed by force of arms. 

The workers of our country to-day are 
proscribed by king monopoly, as those 
elder patriots were by the king of Eng- 
land. We have had proscription en- 
forced, too, in Iowa already, at the 
bayonets' point, by the well drilled 
minions of corporate tyranny — the na- 
tional guard. How leng has it been 
since the Adjutant-General of this state 
took a detail of those guards, musket 
loaded, bayonets fixed, without man- 
date of court or requisition of sheriff, 
obeying a purely dictatorial decree of a 
misguided state executive, and with 
sledge-hammer battered down an office 
door in the state capitol at Des Moines, 
and " at the point of the bayonet," dis- 
possessed of his office a one-armed state 
official, (Hon. J. L. Brown), electedfby 
the people; and that, too, after the judge 
of the circuit court, (Judge Conner), had 
affirmed the legal right of the official to- 
hold his office, — as great a political 
crime, on the part of the governor of 
Iowa, I contend, as that which cost 
Charles First his crown and head; but 
which the rash governor of our state 
could not and would not have attempted 
to commit, except from the prompt sec- 
onding of the " Second Alexander" with, 
his invincible " guard." 

The difference between autocratic and. 
popular government,I'understand, to be 
this, viz: An autocrat rnay issue his, 
ukase and the military stands ever ready 
to enforce it ; while neither the president, 
of the United btates nor the governor oi 
any state may legally issue a decree, in. 
peace or war, to be emorced by military 
power; except in districts where, in. 
time of actual war, military law has in 
due form superceded the civil, as when 
Lincoln issued his emancipation procla- 
mation; because the military is de- 
clared by the constitution of the United 
States, and of each of the states, "subor- 
dinate to the civil power." 

VI. " Looking after Legislation." 

But has the huge army of mercenary 
tools of corporate despotism— the na- 
tional guard of the several states— any 
disposition to go farther than to enforce, 
with the bayonet : the unlawful decrees 
of corporation-controlled state execu- 
tives, and, through them, the decrees 



(23) 



o! foreign syndicates, resolved upon the 
destruction of democratic government 
and the enslavement of labor the world 
over— and especially resolved upon hold- 
ing the agriculturists of North America 
tributary forever to the Kothehilds and 
Barings— the gold barons of Europe? 
Two hundred and fifty thousand well 
armed and well drilled soldiers in this 
day of railroads and telegraphs, may 
become dangerous to pupular liberty, 
(we might reasonably fear), if they, as an 
army, in their organized capacity, pre- 
sumed to "look after legislation at 
Washington." We know why Csesar 
crossed the Rubicon and destroyed the 
republic of Rome. His soldiers took it 
into their heads to "look after legisla- 
tion" at the capital. It was the same 
with Cromwell's army, and the same 
with the army of Napoleon the First. 
But what do our two hundred and fifty 
thousand national guards in wolf-like 
innocence purpose to do? Is there no 
danger threatened to popular liberty 
by them? Are they not taking gigantic 
strides toward the s>ub version of repub- 
lican government itself? I see that 
guard, an ugly snake coiled in the grass. 
I hear its warning rattle when working- 
men are being slaughtered bv the dis- 
charge of repeating rifles in the hands of 
those mercenaries — its hateful head 
raised high in air, its mouth wide open 
showing its poison fangs ready to strike 
deep into the flesh of the unsuspecting 
commonwealth. 

Read, patriots of America, the fol- 
lowing quotations, and ponder their 
significance. I copy from the "Iowa 
Review," the organ of the Iowa guard. 
The April number of 1884, says : "The 
fourth convention of the national guard 
association, of which adjutant general 
W. L. Alexander is secretary, whs held 
at Cinciunati, March 26th and 27th, and 
was well attended, there being fifteen 
states represented.''' 

The national guard of the several 
states of the Union is, then, being united 
into an immense "trust" so that concur- 
rent action, I assert, may be had by 
them in 1 any great movement they may 
conclude to make against the liberties 
of the people* — and history plainly 
proves that such a final movement will 
be made by the military power just as 
sure and as soon as it 'becomes strong 
enough in. any nation, and well disci- 
plined enough, to make the establish- 
ment of a military despotism seemingly 
practicable. In short, history declares 
that the army will govern if it can ; nor 
will our "state regulars" prove to be an 
exception to^ the rule , nor will they 
scruple, when the time to strike arrives, 
to wade through a sea of blood to ac- 
complish their purpose, as did the Ro- 
man lemons under Antony, Lepidus and 
Oesar. Now is a dark day of "trusts" 
and "rings;"— and a huge "army trust," 
"ring" or consolidated organization 



means the enslavement of the unarmed 
many. It bodes no good to democratic 
liberty. 

The Review further enlightens us, as to 
the immediate object of the guard in per- 
fecting a national organization, when it 
says: 

"On motion of General Alexander, a 
committee of five was appointed to look 
after legislation at Washington." 

Two hundred and fifty thousand 
armed guards in the American Union "as 
well drilled as regulars, "holding political 
conventions and working to build up 
their power and strength through legisla- 
tion—lobbying in the halls of Congress- 
working with a single purpose in view — 
tke building up of an army under} ay and 
subject to the control pf the corporate 
money power of the nation, urged on 
and directed by London bankers, are a 
most dangerous menace to democratic 
liberty, I declare. And their dangerous 
purpose is here openly avowed in plain 
English. If the Union army during the 
rebellion had appointed, through its 
officers, a committee to "lookafter legis- 
lation at Washington,"what would have 
been its significance ? Revolution. Can 
the patriot, jealous of his liBtr-ty, see 
any other design and end than Evolu- 
tion in such threatening action by v 4;he 
powerful national guard of America? "J 
think not. \ 

Again the Review srys: "Quite a 
lengthy discussion was had on holding 
an encampment at Washington ; but it 
was laid over till next meeting, as was 
also a code of the United States. ' 

The national guard is not, therefore, 
just a local militia organization, as the 
people vainly imagine ; but a grea t mili- 
tary power near akin to the regular 
army — compactly organized with a "code 
of the United State." It is a vast, com- 
pact, selfish, mercenary "trust" with re- 
peating rifles in their hands, as well as 
ballots, with which to enforce their 
decrees. The Review declares: 

"General Drum, adjutant general of 
the United States at Washington, favors 
the encampment of regular troops with 
the national guards, and is waiting with 
much interest the efforts of the guards 
throughout the state, and he in com- 
pany with the secretary of war, and 
other prominent officials, are expected 
to be present at .the encampment at 
Dubuque, as that will be a special part 
of the programme."* 

♦Washington, Nov. 8, 1887,— [Associate Press 
Dispatch. J— Adjutant General Drum, in his an- 
nual report to the secretary of war, states 
that the steadily increasing interest mani- 
fested by the militia of the states is evidenced 
by the high percentage of attendance at th e 
annual encampments and the generally excel- 
lent military spirit of the troops. With tn e 
Pberal increase of appropriations made a ^ 
the last session of congress it is earnestly 
hoped that the state military authorities w 11 
be increased in the allowance of ammunition, 
foster and develop the efficiency of the rank 
and file in target firing He recommends the 



(24) 

So then we have an immense organi- of the lash," who worked the chattel 
zation of well-drilled soldiers, holding slaves, were carried out by the bom- 
national conventions (congresses), united bardment of Fort Sumter, April, 18bl, 
under a "code of the United States" of and that renders of "paramount im- 
their own encactment, "inspected" by portance battalion organization and 
regular arm v officers, and "looking after drill in battalion movements," is war 
legislation at Washington," with the bal- and only war 

• lot in the our hand and the Springfield Than war what other purpose of par- 

repeatin* rifle in Hie other— moving of amount importance," in the name of 

its own motion, like a meat, wriggling, Liberty, I ask, can any one conceive an 

uneasy reptile, lean and hungry— capa- army to exist for of six regiments, well 

ble willing and ready to descend upon drilled in the use of the murderous en- 

anv quarter of the Union in a few hours gines of modern butchery of human 

at'the command of its officers— a hydra beings, including the Gatling gun, and at 

of two hundred and fifty thousand a cost to the peace-loving people of Iowa 

heads, that must be slain* or liberty of many thousands of dollars annually— 

speedily perish. the constitution of the state to the con- 

The millions of farmers and wage tiary notwithstanding, 
workers of America will soon be com- Our six regiments, filled up to the 
pelled to see, and to their sorrow ac- maximum contemplated in the Iowa 
knowledge, what li most clearly see now, code, would cost the state (as their 
and would' have all patriots and lovers legal pay now is) (3,000 men (privates) 
of liberty see before it is too late to be each $1.50 per diem, six days drill 
remedied, that the government and the yearly- 
people of our country have become in Two years # $108,000 

fact, aud (if our army of national guards, One suit each uniform cloth- 

— "state regulars"— remain a fixed in- ing, $25.00 per sut 150,000 

stitution), will continue to be two d is- p ay f officers, transporta- 

tinct, different and antagonistic things, tion and rations, probablv 

as in Russia , Egypt, India and Ireland not below 25,000 

—the government a despotism and the 

people slaves. Total biennial cost to the peo- 

„ , T ,,. pie of the state would aggre- 

VII. "In The Next Few Years." gate about .?!?..... $283,000 

Colonel Dodge, of the United States And this in the face of a positive con- 

Eegular Army, was lately commissioned stitutional prohibition of the " k'eeping 

by the authorities of the state of Iowa up of a standing army in time of peace," 

to "inspect" the Iowa national guard, and which means that to pay even one 

and in his report to the adjutant gen- cent to "keep up" an army in time of 

eral of our state significantly says: peace is unlawful. The enemies of pop- 

"For the use to which the Iowa na- ular liberty, I declare, expect to be able 

tional guard is likely to be put within to put a stop to "industrial discon- 

the next few rears, battalion organiza- tent." not by doing justice to the work- 

tion and drill in battalion movements ingmen and farmers, but by bloodshed— 

are of paramount importance:' not by removing the cause of thediscon- 

What imaginable rebellion of wage tent by equitable laws, but by shooting 

slaves, or uprishm of the "dangerous" the discontented with Gatling guns and 

agriculturists, I ask, is likely to occur repeating ritles in the hands of mercenary 

"jin the next feAv years," in the peaceful guards, detectives and policemen, 

and liberty -loving state of Iowa, where That is unquestionably the programme 

reside to-day sixty thousand Union vet- of the employers of labor on this conti- 

erans of the late war, that renders of nent in their dealings with the workmg- 

"paramount importance" battalion or- men andfarmers,since already, time and 

ganization a,nd drill in battalion move- again, they have dipped their hateful 

ments of this mercenary band of so- hands in the blood of our workers, men, 

called "national guards?" But manifestly women and children, as it is of the 

the only "use" to which this trained Tones of Great Britain in their cruel deal- 

PraBtorian band of quasi regulars is mgs with the Irish peasantry. It is the 

likely to be put in the "next few years," same on both sides of the sea; and no 

—if the wishes of the "lords of cash," worse in Ireland than is contemplated 

who work the wage slaves, should be and practiced now right here. There, 

carried out, as the wishes of the "lords it is true, the mischief is proposed openly 

in advance by the Queen in her "speech" 

establshment, during eacb encampment of to parliament, while here it is planned 
officers, a school lor instruction in bat alion secretly bv corporation attorneys, 
drill and organization and post. Healsosug- There the voters p^dpH^Iv tlm«P r»f 
i.ests the advantage of holding weekly, during x™i t i OTers > ebpeci arl\ those ot 
the winter months, a non commissioned ofli- Ireland, are not hoodwinked and De- 
cern' school - and for instructors ..\oundr offi- trayed into kindling the fagots to cre- 
< ers of the regular army who could be spared n , ate themselves, because the leaders of 
during the winter to report to the adjutant fh nprm i„ ; n 4-x, * + nr , 11T1 f„ xr ' „i„„ 
generals of the states on application of the tne people in that country, as aclaas, 
governors. are honest and patriotic; here they are 



( 25 ) 



tioodwinked and betrayed into kindling 
the fagots to cremate themselves be- 
cause patty leaders in this country, as a 
class, are "dishonest and unpatriotic, 
having sold their loyalty to the corpo- 
rations. 

All the great legal learning and talent 
of this nation, as a rule, are retained 
and held in pay by the raiload, manu- 
facturing, mining, banking, standard oil, 
and cattle ranch associations of foreign* 
ers m the United States, and thus the 
interests of our commonwealth are 
made subordinate to the interests of 
alien monopolists in the legislature, on 
the judicial bench, and in the executive 
chair of both state and nation, because- 
lawyers have ever held, do still hold, 
.and they yet expect always to be able 
to hold, continuous control of the three 
branches of the government, they being 
the law makers, the law judges and the 
law executors — practically the arbiters 
of the - public liberty, prosperity and 
peace — the broken staff upon which, un- 
fortunately, the people of our country 
are seemingly forced to lean and totter 
to their fall, De Tocqueville warned -the 
people of America, long ago, of the dan- 
ger of entrusting too much power in the 
bands of lawyers. No man can be a cor- 
poration attorney, I declare, and be a 
patriot at the same time. He will either 
hate his country and love the corpora- 
tion, or he .will love the corporation and 
despise his country— serving Mammon, 
he cannot serve God, since he cannot at 
the same time serve two masters. 

The "rich man" in authority, be he 
Irish landlord or Anglo-American rail- 
road, mining, or factory baron, blinded 
by avarice and inflated with egotism, 
learns nothing by experience or from 
history ; but goes madly forward to re- 
enact the bloody tragedies of the bar- 
barous times, vainly invoking the 
Moloch of coercion and war in his frantic 
efforts to put a period to the social pro- 
gress of the age— to extinguish the elec- 
tric torch in the hand of the Angel of 
Liberty Enlightening the 'World. Thus 
in so short a time as a quarter of a cen- 
tury do we see history about to repeat 
itself— like causes producing inevitably 
like effects.* 



VIII. 



The Climax of Political Vil- 
lainy. 



A bill lately passed the plutocratic 
senate of the United States to "nation- 
alize the militia" as a remedy, says an 
associated press dispatch, "for indus- 
trial discontent."! So the secret con- 
spirators against American liberty have 

*An evil day is appro ching - when it becomes 
recognized in a community that the only 
standard of social destination is wealth. That 
day was soon folJowed in Home by its ux« 
avoidab e consequence, a govern ujci it 
founded upon two domestic elements, corrup- 
tion and terrorism.— "intellectual Develop- 
ment of Europe."- Drapkf. 



finally reached the climax of their villainy. 
If this accursed measure should become 
law, the period of anarchy and civil 
Avar would, I fear, be immediately upon 
us with all of its horrors. Workers will 
be shot 'lown like dogs for daring to hold 
hold up their heads like men. This most 
abominable, most wicked law, places 
in the hands of the employers of labor 
the control of the central military power 
of the nation, so that they may say to 
the workers: "Accept the wages we please 
to give you or die." That is manfestly 
the purpose and aim of the law. Mil- 
lions of liberty-loving men and women. 
when this alternative is forced upon 
them, will willingly prefer death to slav- 
ery. Patrick Henry's burning words of 
defiance to the tyrant king, "Give me 
liberty, or give me death," — will become 
the watchword and war cry of the toilers 
of America, as they were of our fore- 
fathers — 

'The hardy Continentals in their buckskin 
regimental*," — 

and the war of Revolution will have to 
be fought over again, or American liberty 
be foreyer at an end. The wicked design 
of the authors of this bill is to transfer 
to the United States permanently the 
British methods of coercion applied in 
Ireland for seven centuries. 

It is, in my opinion, the most wicked 
act of tyranny ever attempted on this 
continent since the landmgof the British 
regulars at Boston in 1768; for then 
will the national guard have become what 
its name implies— "national." The Iowa 
guard will be subject to the call of mo- 
nopoly to coerce the workers in the 
mines and workshops of Pennsylvania, 
or New York, or upon the sugar planta- 
tions of Louisiana, or the cotton fields 
of South Carolina,— and the guards of 
Pennsylvania, New York, Louisiana, 
South Carolina and the other states, 
north and south, will be subject to tlie 
call of monopoly to coerce the workers 
in the mines, factories, workshops, etc., 
of Iowa. 

IX. Is Monopoly King ? 
Why are there not peaceful courts in- 
stituted in this corporation cursed land 
to arbitrate between employers and em- 
ployed ? Is it right to have the military 
enforce the mandate of King Gould and 
Kmg Armour any more than it was that 
of King George- the Third ? Wiry are 
they not as promptly and freely em- 
ployed to enforce the mandate of the 
workers? As long as King Gould and 
King Armour can rely upon governors, 
and sheriffs, mayors and city marshals, 

fit passed the millionarie senate, but fail' d of 
ra sage in ihe na.re patriotic Honce. God blees 
the House of Represents ives, 1 pay, for their 
moft praiseworthy act. May it and the pit,-i- 
dent, who is the "iribn e of the people 1 '' accord- 
ing to the design of the au triors of He Federal 
Constitution, ptand tree to tie ancient lib rttes 
bequeathed us by Jefferson and Washington. 



(26) 



national guards, armed policemen and 
Pinkerton's hireling band of professional 
murderers and assassins, to promptly 
and eagerly respond to their call, and 
with alacrity enforce their ukase, as they, 
do now, does any one presume that the 
monopolists will consent that any 
"court" shall be instituted to settle 
strikes, other than the bayonet, bullet 
and Gatling gun ? 

Is it not a horrible condition of affairs 
when we behold the bloody array of armed 
man, woman and child-killers placed by 
the state and (soon it will be) by the 
national authorities, in the hands of the 
employers of labor, to be used by them 
as a huge war-club with which to liter- 
ally brain the workers who dare to look 
up from their tasks or utter a word of 
manly protest against the tyranny of 
their greedy task-masters? The whole 
capitalistic newspaper fraternity lift up 
their bribe-soiled hands in feigned terror 
of Herr Most and his crazy followers; 
but the real danger to the peace of so- 
ciety threatens, it appears to me, not 
from the side of the common people, be 
they Anarchists, Nihilists, Socialists, 
Nationalists, Labor party men, Demo- 
crats or Republicans ; but from the side 
of the monopolists, with their diabolical 
array of paid attorneys, judges and leg- 
islators, sheriffs and mayors, governors 
and presidents, armed policemen and 
Pinkerton's band of Hessians, the na- 
tional guard, and (it will soon.be, if the 
people do not awaken in time to prevent 
it) the United States regulars, standing 
ever ready to execute the monoplists' 
decrees. 

But it is evident to my mind that the 
employers of labor would be glad to 
have instituted peaceful courts of arbi- 
tration, if governors, sheriffs, mayors, 
city marshals, etc., would sav to them, 
as they ought (and as tney mast shortly 
say. if I do not mistake the true feeling 
of the American people), "we can pay 
no attention to your quarrels with your 
men, except to arrest those who actually 
break the peace by open acts of vio- 
lence." The workers will never resort to 
violence unless under the same, or sim- 
ilar provocations, that existed in Bos- 
ton when Attucks fell. Let us (the farm- 
ers, mechanics,and laborers of America), 
loudly demand then, that the quarrels 
of employers with their hands be here- 
after referred to courts of arbitration 
for settlement, and not to military 
power. 

Who have the greater weight in the 
politics of Illinois, Mr. Armour with his 
money, or 'his twenty thousand workers 
with their votes? If one rich man weighs 
more than twenty thousand toiler^ in 
our political system, then how long will 
even the shadow of freedom remain" with 
the people of our country, in the pres- 
ence of our many millionaires, twenty- 
five of whom (possessing, it is said, one 
hundred and sixty million dollars— an 



average of six million dollars apiece), 
now occupy seats in the United States 
senate — seats that their superior talents 
or their distinguished patriotism never 
secured for them, and that never would 
have been theirs,! am safe in saying.if they 
had been men of moderate fortunes, like 
Webster, or Clay, Douglas, or Thurman.. 

The people of ou..' country seem pow- 
erless in the presence of the moguls of 
wealth. What has been the fate of their 
truest and mightiest champions? The 
wealthy monopolist displaces by bri- 
bery the life-long patriot and honest 
man. Payne, the millionaire, who, like # 
Caesar'6 wife, is not (to say the least), in 
character above suspicion, supercedes 
Thurman, the incorruptible statesman^ 
irreproachable patriot, but poor man — 
poor because honest. 

The fate of Mr.VanWyckof Nebraska, 
may be pointed to as a striking proof of 
the truth that monopolyin our country 
reigns king to-day. Disregarding the peo- 
ple's clearly spoken will, the 4 mer i cai * 
tyrant proscribes and ruthlessly strikes 
down to death the defenders of popular 
rights. To reach political preferment 
along any other path than that of be- 
trayal of the people is impossible in this 
corrupt day. Patriotism is at a dis- 
count. Talent is feared and boycotted, 
unless it can be bribed with gold into the 
service of corporate tyranny. The peo- 
ple's eyes have been put out by the 
Philistines of monopoly, and they are 
placed under the yoke like cattle, and 
made to turn the wheel of the monop- 
olists mill. 

AH bad government may be traced 
directly to monopolistic sources of cor- 
ruption. By means of monopolies an 
aristocracy of wealth has been built up 
among us, undreamed of by our fathers. 
The monopolists dwell m .palaces and 
revel in riches extorted from the farmers 
and laborers through the agency of cor- 
rupt legislation. Equality of fortune 
being thus destroyed, equality of rights 
has been destroyed also. The "people" 
who instituted this government have no 
longer any voice in its administration. 
The black toilers of the southern states 
are no more deprived of a voice in the 
government of those states and of the 
nation than are the white toilers of the 
northern states, (farmers, mechanics 
and laborers), practically deprived of a 
voice in the government of state and 
nation to-day. The multitudes that go 
to the polls to vote are merely enacting 
a farce. The result of the election has 
been pre-determined in favor of the mo- 
nopolists by an association (ring),, 
formed to control through a secret sys- 
tem of chicanery nominations of candi- 
dates of all political parties, to the end 
that the interests of the monopolists 
may not suffer, and that the said mo- 
nopolists, through the instrumentality 
of corrupt legislative enactments, rnayr 
become millionaires. 



Ik 



( 27) 



X. The Centennial Retrospect. 

What, then, is the retrospect in the 
centennial year of the creation of the 
American constitution ? It is that the 
constitution of government established 
by the fathers one hundred years ago 
is in fact inoperative to-day. In form 
the government is indeed the same now 
as then; but practically it is different. 
The same form of government was kept 
up 'in Rome, under Octavius Caesar,' in 
the consulate of Maecenas, as under the 
republic, in the consulate of Pompey. 
But the governing power of the Roman 
republic had passed out of the hand* of 
the Roman people into the hands of a 
military commander, — the emperor. 
The governing power of the American 
republic has certainly and clearly passed, 
temporarily, let us hope and pray, out of 
the hands of the American people into 
the hands of corporation kings — so-called 
"Capitalists." And the capitalists that 
exercise the most potent, most baleful 
influence over American politics, reside m 
London. We are governed by the money 
power of the old world. Bonds and mort- 
gages beyond the enormous sum of 
twenty thousand millions of dollars^ se- 
cured by a gigantic steal, a fraudulent 
monetary system, dictated by foreign 
syndicates of money-lenders, have en- 
gulfed the property of the people of the 
United States. The national banking 
system, imposed upon us by foreign 
usurers, places the circulating medium of 
our country under the direct control of 
British money lords, to be contracted 
and expanded by them as may best 
serve their hateful purpose, which is to 
confiscate the property of the American 
producers, whom they design to hold in 
■ everlasting bondage. The control of leg- 
islation, national and state, by corpor- 
ate wealth, backed by Britsh gold, dur- 
ing the past twen ty years of our coun- 
try's history, has been absolute, and 
hence, during that period, the confisca- 
tion of the property of the American 
many by the few British agents, has gone 
forward with increasing rapidity. 

But let us now declare : corporate 
greed has elutched its last dollar, and 
the chains Britain has forged for the 
American producers shall be broken link 
by link. British intrigue and greed shall 
no longer triumph over American man- 
hood. The Americau people must re- 
assert and regain their lost authority — 
must take hold of the reins of govern- 
ment once more, displacing the agents 
of foreign syndicates, 

XI. Labor's Modest Demand. 

A just share of the proceeds of indus- 
try, assured to the workers, is all that is 
demanded by organized labor the world 
over; and to forcefully and guilefully 
seize upon and appropriate to their own 
luxurious use the proceeds of industry, 



allowing the workers to retain only 
enough of those proceeds for their bare- 
subsistence, is what is aimed at by or- 
ganized capital the world over, while 
organized capital to-day controls all 
governments, and is the prime cause of 
all discords and* all wars. There is no 
other quarrel among men now, and there 
never has been any other quarrel in the 
past, than that of the wolf with the 
lamb. Look at Egypt, look at India, 
look at Ireland for confirmation of this 
truth that all history bears me out in 
asserling.J 

There is but one side to the labor 
question, and that is the side of the 
laborers. There is but one duty before 
the American people (and before every 
other people), and that is to affordtevery 
man and woman a fair chance to earn a 
living by honest toil. 

But no final, complete and satisfac- 
tory adjustment of the labor question 
can be reached under the wage system 
of industry. We must have co-operative 
labor universally in operation before 
harmony can be attained. This the 
whole American people must take; hold 
of to establish. It will require a national 
effort to set up the new system of indus- 
try, as it took a national effort to break 
down chattel slavery. 
' Let that effort be put forth under the 
starry ensign of "peace and good will," 
as it will be, if the people be not forced 
against their better judgment and most 
earnest protest, into a bloody war once 
more, by the rashness of the enemy (the 
Ango-American Anarchists of Wall 
Street) , as they were by the rashness of 
General Gage at Lexington, April 19, 
1775, and of Beauregard at Charleston, 
April 12, 1861. The hateful national 
guard, armed policemen and armed de- 
tectives, must not be marshaled by alien 
monopolists to shoot down our people, 



% From 1563 to 1834 a conspiracy concocted by 
law and carried out by parties interested in its 
success, was entered into to cheat the English 
workman of his wages, to tie him to the soil, to 
deprive him of hope and to degrade him into 
irredeemable poverty. * * * * 

For more than two centuries and a half the 
English law, and those who administered t*e 
law, were engaged in grinding the English 
workman dow» to the lowest pittance, in stamp- 
ing out every expression or act which indicated 
aiy organized discontent, and in multiplying 
penalties upon him when he thought of his nat- 
ural rights. I am not deceived by the hypocracy 
which the preamble of an Act of Parliament 
habitually contains, and the assertions which are 
habitually contradicted by the details of the 
measure. The Act of Elizabeth dec 1 ares that 
<k the wages of laborers are too 6mall, and not 
answerable to those times;" and speaks of the 
" grief and burden of the poor laborer and hired 
man," and thereupon enacts a law which effect- 
ually makes the wages small aod mul tiplies the 
laborer's grief and burden, by allowing those 
who are interested in keeping him poor lo fix the 
wages on which he shall subsist and to exact a 
testimonial from his past employers and the 
overseers or church wardens when he quitted a 
service, which he had to show before he entered 
another.— Six Centuries of Work and Wages. — 
Kogers. 



( 28 ) 



any more, and the diabolical design to 
<-oerce the workers into permanent 
slavery and destroy the freedom of as- 
sembly ,and the right of free speech must 
be given up by the enemy, else, before we 
are aware, and in spite of our most 



earnest endeavors for peace, the Lex- 
ington of this contest will be fought and 
we shall find ourselves plunged headlong 
into the bloody vortex of the Third 
American Revolutionary War of Free- 
dom and Independence. 



ESSAY III.— WHAT OF THE NIGHT? 



I. Let is Have Peace. 

The right of revolution conceded, is it 
not reasonable to say that if the work- 
ingmen will not vote unitedly for their 
interests, they can never be brought to 
fight unitedly for their rights? If now 
they\:ari be coerced by their employers, 
-or cajoled by party leaders, to vote on 
the side of monopoly, they can certainly 
be conscripted by the government to 
right on the side of monopoly. The poor 
whites of the south were cajoled and 
forced to light for the cause of chattel 
slavery, which they ought to have known 
(if they did not know), meant their ever- 
lasting degredation. The workers would 
better do as they do now, vote against 
each other than to tight against each 
other. But the producers that toil in 
workshop, in factory, on farm, on rail- 
road, in mine, etc., etc., can (if they will), 
unite for peaceful action in favor of 
their common interests and rights, as 
did the Patrons of Husbandry in 1871, 
and through united, peaceful action, the 
triumph of labor is assured. What has 
been done on no insignificant scale by 
the farmers may be done on a still 
grander scale by all the producers and 
laborers of America united. Already the 
great Labor Unions, Federations" of 
Labor, Knights of Labor, Farmers' 
Alliances, etc., assure for the workers. 
at this moment, victory almost ,won. 
Theiemustbea united effort of all toilers 
to release, through the ballot, from the 
grasp of monopoly, the three essentials, 
land, tools and money. Ibis done. labor 
will be emancipated. "Free soil, free 
iooJs, and free money," must be inscribed 
on the people's banner, as their first and 
most essential demand. 

I place the emancipation of labor in 
free soil, free tools and free money. What 
is free soil? It is the common ownership 
of the land. What is free tools? It is 
the common ownership of the tools 
of production. What is free money? 
It is the common ownership of 
the medium of exchange. The com 
mon ownership of land, tools and money 
will give to each individual like interest 
in them, like advantage from them and 
like control of them. Xo laud kings, no 
manufacturing kings, no money kings; 
but co-operation will be the law. The 
private ownership and control by the 
tew of the three essentials— land, tools 
and money— is the cause of the dishar- 
mony and poverty that alllicts the 



world to-day, yea, the sole, the only 
cause. 

Despair of the ballot is despair of pop- 
ular government. We lose sight of the 
fact that it was not the emancipation 
proclamation of Abraham Lincoln that 
freed the chattel slaves, neither was it 
the bayonets of the Union militia. It 
was the popular vote of November, 
1860, that freed tl em. The south was 
right in saying, "The election of Abra- 
ham Lincoln to the Presidency means 
the ultimate extinction of negro slav- 
ery." The south was wrong, fatally 
wrong, in taking up arms to resist the 
mandate of the ballot. "Republicans 
of the old school," (as they professed 
themselves), "disciples of Thomas Jef- 
ferson," they ought to have said, to be 
consistent, "the. ballot decides it. Re- 
volt against the mandate of the ballot, 
is revolt against democracy itself. It is 
saying, ' government by the people is a 
failure.' It is to trample upon the sacred 
writings of the prophet of Monticello, 
the writings of Thomas Jefferson him- 
self, whom all must regard as the direct 
author of American liberty and equality, 
he being the author of the Declaration 
of Independence of 1776." 

II. The Best Government on Earth. 

The Ameiican government to-day, 
though dominated, as it is by monopoly 
— the people hoodwinked and misled by 
"false lights on the shore," is, with all 
its short-comings, the best government 
that the sun shines upon — or that it ever 
has shone upon — and k its growth to ripe- 
ness and maturity is the only hope of 
mankind. Every true American would 
give his life to save his government — the 
"constitution as it is," before he would 
despair of the ballot and open the door 
to bloody revolution. 

Framed by Washington, Franklin, 
Hamilton, Adams, and the other great 
statesmen of the immortal convention 
of 1787, it has met the requirements of 
the American people for one hundred 
years, and has stood the strain of the 
most formidable rebellion ever known. 
The federal constitution remains still 
the greatest instrument of government 
the world has ever seen. It will never 
be superceded ; but, like the locomotive 
engine., it will be perfected. When my 
voice or my pen shall deride it, "ma v 
my tongue cleave to the roof of my 
mouth, and my right hand be palsied! " 



( 29) 



I will, if need be, defend the constitution 
against the assaults of the enemies of 
American liberty with my blood and my 
life. I will guard it with sleepless vigi- 
lence against the attacks of alien egotists 
who come among us to proclaim their 
contempt for it and to otter us a "better 
system of government," devised by 
some Teutonic theorist in his study, 
which, if tried in practice, would, no 
doubt, prove to be as unsatisfactory 
and impracticable as was the constitu- 
tion of the Caroliuas framed by the Eng- 
lish metaphysician, John Locke. The 
reforms advocated by my pen may all 
be brought about without any altera- 
tion of our fundamental laws. 1 believe 
in evolution, but not in revolution. 

We will, in the future, change the con- 
stitution wherein it needs to be changed, 
to adapt it to the most advanced ideas 
and demands of the majority, by suita- 
ble amendments, as we have clone in the 
past. But woe to him who would pro- 
pose to destroy the sacred instrument 
by bloody war! We will make the con- 
stitution "what it ought to be" by peace- 
ful and gradual changes wrought by fair 
and free discussion— free speech, free as- 
sembly, free press and free pen being a 
sacred and essentia,! pre-requisite to all 
reform,the will of the people to be finally 
declared only by and through the ballot. 
Has not the patriotic American gone far 
astray who advocates Anarchism as a 
remedy for existing evils? "For twenty 
years," says one, "we have had the bal- 
lot and the country has gone from bad 
to worse. W 7 hat remedy has the ballot 
brought to repeal these infamous laws, 
to help the people's distress, to help the 
farmers to pay their debts for which 
nine-tenths of the farms of the coun- 
are mortgaged? I repeat^ is there 
any prospect that the ballot will 
serve us better in the future ? How can 
it be done? How will we use the ballot 
to make it effective to restore the pros- 
perity of the country ? " 

The above questions have been seri- 
ously propounded through the columns 
of a great industrial periodical of this 
country, by a profound thinker and able 
writer. It may be proper to ask the dis- 
tinguished questioner, in reply, whether 
any great and important measure has 
ever been passed by our government, 
leading directly on to the present mam- 
moth growth of monopoly and the im- 
poverishment of the many that the peo- 
ple have not at least tacitly assented to 
— let alone opposing it? Does he coin- 
plan of the donation by congress of 
lands to railroad corporations? Has 
not this policy been advocated by all 
prominent American statesmen begin- 
ning with John C. Calhoun? Does he 
complain of land monopoly? The peo- 
ple have always upheld the right of in- 
dividuals and corporations to own lands 
without limitation. Does he complain 
of the national banking system? A 



majority of the people of the United? 
States have not, since Jackson's day, ex- 
pressed themselves decidedly hostile to 
national banks. Who, then,' is to blame 
for the monopolies that oppress us? 
The people. But ought we, on that ac- 
count, and to remedy the evils com- 
plained of, abolish popular government? 
I think not. What then should we do ? 
Enlighten the people. The people do the 
best they know. That is the best that 
can be done. Water cannot rise higher 
than the fountain-head ; and the people 
cannot do better than they know. 
Though omnipotent, they, unfortun- 
ately, are not omnicient. Great inter- 
ests by controling the press, hoodwink 
the voters. 

This is the friction that must be 
overcome as the world moves on. But 
it will be overcome. Truth will triumph. 
The right will ultimately prevail. We 
(writer and reader both), may grow old 
and die it is true, and so too, "this gen- 
eration may pass away," and the end be 
yet far off — the people be yet enslaved 
by false systems. But civilization is 
always seemingly of slow growth. Afri- 
can slavery existed two hundred and 
forty -three years in. the United States- 
and the nation was bullied and domi- 
nated for many decades by a few slave- 
lords, as now it is dominated by a few 
money lords. But African slavery 
passed away and with it the domination 
of the slave lords. How? By revolu- 
tion? No. By the advance of public 
sentiment. It was overthrown by the 
ballot. But do you say "the popular- 
will was enforced by the sword ? " True 
it was. How, I ask, is any law enforced 
as a last resort? By the civil posse 
comitatus — the militia — called out as 
were the "boys in blue." They enforced 
the popular voice expressed at a national 
election in 1860, in favor of the ultimate 
downfall of chattel slavery in the United 
States. It was only an ordinary pro- 
ceeding of free government when the laws 
are set at defiance. Let the important 
fact be ever borne in mind, then, that 
though monopoly hold the reigns for a 
time, yet above all and forevermore, the 
voice of the people is, and will be hence- 
lor ward, the law of this land. 

And the same may be said to-day of 
every European nation, Russia, Turkey 
and Ireland seemingly excepted — seem- 
ingly, for it is more than Great Britain* 
is able to do to govern the people of Ire- 
land. They must be allowed "home 
rule," because civilization has reached 
that level. The Irish people can no 
longer be governed. They must govern 
themselves. And the Czar of Russsia 
will not much longer "govern by his 
ukase all the Russias." Poor Turkey is 
too, a subject nation, but like Ireland, 
her emancipation will come bye and bye 
and her people universally rule, as now 
the people rule in her ex-provinces of 
Greece, Montenegro, Servia, Bulgaria^ 
and Roumania. 



(30) 



But do we yet ask in our impatience, 
**How long, O Lord, how long!" Will 
it take two hundred and forty-three 
years of discords and stubborn strikes 
leading to countless massacres of work- 
ingmen by mercenary detectives, armed 
policemen and national guards, at the 
instigation of merciless wage slave- 
masters, before wage slavery shall come 
to an end in our country, and the rights 
of property be forever subordinated to 
the natural rights of man? Every 
form of oppression destroys human feel- 
ing in the hearts of those who profit by 
it. The wage slave-masters would cer- 
tainly lash, lacerate, torture and kill 
their helpless and despised slaves with 
as little feeling, if they dared to do so, 
as the chattel ^lave-masters of America 
did their slaves, and as the merciless 
Spaniards did the natives of Cuba and 
Hayti. They gratify now their hellish 
hate of the wage-slaves by means of 
Oatling guns and repeating rifles in the 
hands of detectives, policemen and na- 
tional guards, organized, armed and 
paid for no other purpose but to coerce 
labor. , 

I believe that the so-called Anarchist 
proclamations "printed in red ink" and 
scattered broad-cast — the planting of dy- 
namite bombs along the railroad track of 
the C. B. & Q. line, etc., etc.,— which 
afford monopoly a fulcrum for the appli- 
cation of the coercion lever, whittled 
out by the legislature of Illinois, for the 
benefit of wage slave-masters, are all 
"machinery," like that the poe*;s invent 
to set off their fiction, and that it is all 
manufactured to order for a price by 
the mercenary "detective" craftmen — a 
secret conclave of bandits with head-cen- 
ter in a cave of skulls in Chicago. 

I ask how long will this savagery of 
employers in the treatme it of the em- 
ployed continue before the people vote 
to establish the true system of labor- 
co-operative industry — to supercede and 
displace entirely and forever the barba- 
rous wage system, building up co oper- 
ative labor associations on the same 
plan and by the same authority of na- 
tional law as we have already built up 
over three thousand co-operative na- 
tional banking associations, and all the 
vast establishment of railroad and man- 
ufacturing corporations of the United 
States? which are merely co-operative 
institutions organized to benefit the 
few. We (the people) , have built up all 
those monopolies. How long before we, 
(the people), that built them up, si all 
pull them down and in their place estab- 
lish co-operative industrifi.1 associations 
to benefit the many?* 

♦Incorporation is but a form of co-operation 
under the law. * * * " Heretofore cor- 
porations have been organized mainly as the 
instruments of capital. Hereafter, as education 
becomes general, may not labor make like use of 
corporations? May not the wage receivers 
combine in their own interests and become in- 
corporated under the law for peaceful and legal 



III. Where L'ies the Blame? 



But are the " monopolists," the " mil- 
lionaires," the "wage slave masters," 
the "classes" (or whatever other odious 
names we may be pleased to call them 
by), inherently worse than other men? 
No; they are just exactly the same sort 
of men as we ourselves would be, in all 
probability, under the same circum- 
stances, however mean, heartless, cruel 
and selfish they may seem. The wrong 
is not really 'in the individuals them- 
selves, but in the institutions that beget 
the circumstances which determine indi- 
vidual action. " We wrestle not against 
flesh and blood, but against principa 1 - 
ities, against powers,"— so Paul said 0; 
old, and so, too, the reformer may truly ■ 
say now. It is "institutions" that the 
reformer should endeavor to change and 
thus influence the action of men. Man 
is the creature of conditions. 

The heroic Arctic explorers under 
Greeley, are reported to have been driven 
by the cravings of hunger to eat the 
flesh of their dead comrades— to become, 
in a word, cannibals. Such is the omnipo- 
tent force of surroundings. The varied 
surroundings are the chief causes of the 
varied actions of men. The "environ- 
ment" fashions and shapes the character 
and acts of individuals in an infinite de- 
gree, as it has diversified /egetable and 
animal life. True, there exist inherent 
tendencies of mind and disposition, but 
these are reduced very frequently to 
naught by the surroundings. The im- 
petuous river may, indeed, force its irre- 
sistible way onward toward the pre- 
destined gulf, though oft impeded in its 
course by the huge land-slides and 
mighty boulders that descend into its 
bed, or it may spread out and become a 
"Dead Sea." What would Humboldt 
have been if brought up among the root- 
digger Indians? He might have be- 
come a "big chief"— a "medicine man" 
— a great "prophet." He would not have 
been "Baron Von Humboldt, the great 
naturalist," it is clear. Familiar to 
every school boy are the lines of Gray : 

"Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid 
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire ; 

Hands that the rod of empire might have 
swayed 
Or waked to ecstacy the living lyre. 

But knowledge to their eyes her ample page, 
Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll; 

Chill penury repressed their noble rage, 
And froze the genial current of the soul." 

Driven by the stress of unhappy sur- 
roundings, thousands of noble-minded 
young women become prostitutes, that 
under more happy circumstances and 
conditions would be honest wives and 
beloved matrons— tens of thousands of 

action, to do their work in a way that will bring 
them the largest return? This has not been done 
simply because of the want, of education and in- 
telligence. *'—-•'* Industrial Question. 1 '-. S. B. Elk- 
ins. 



(81) 



wall-meaning young men become crimi- 
nals—millions of willing workers become 
tramps and beggars. Look across a 
field of ripening wheat; all the heads 
seem on a level, like the water of a lake. 
So all human beings are as nearly on a 
common level in their'actions under like 
circumstances. If it were not so, it were 
useless to drill men for the ranks of an 
army. Well drilled, the tens of thousands 
move as one person. So with well 
organized society, the many become one 
in action and sentiment. • 



IV. The Tendency of the Age. 



It is to association and unity of %i- 
deavor society is tending. Mr. Patrick 
Ford in his magnificent journal, the 
Irish World, oi Dec. 31, 1887, in an edi- 
torial article on the " Evidences of Evo- 
lution" says: "The reign of individual 
enterprise is boing superceded by that of 
associated effort, in which the individ- 
ual is lost sight of as an independent fan- 
tor, and the greatest interests are repre- 
sented by the index of an executive of a 
"trust" or "union." Great armies of 
wage workers, acting mechanically as a 
part of a huge system of machinery, take 
the place of the independent artisans of 
the past. The competition between in- 
dividual employers and manufacturers 
has been removed by combination in 
"which those who were formerly compet- 
itors now act as a unit. The most pow- 
erful interests in the country have 
caught the spirit of association and have 
so perfected their organization as to en- 
able them, by acting as a single factor, 
to control the very necessaries of life of 
the nation, to decide, by a vote of an 
executive board whether the means of 
livelihood shall be granted or denied to 
hundreds of thousands of families, 
whether the people shall pay one or two 
prices for the products of the harvest 
fields, or the fuel for the household. The 
wage workers of the country have not 
been indifferent observers of the inevit- 
able tendency of this concentration of 
power in the hands of the employing in- 
terests, but have been banding together 
in a tremendous cosmopolitan organ- 
ization, instead of the old, disconnected 
trade unions, for the purpose of present- 
ing a united front against the encroach- 
ments of monopoly upon their individ- 
ual rights. Thus we find all the various 
interests of the great commonwealth 
being rapidly reduced, as it were, to so 
many factors, each acting as a separate 
and definite unit, capable of adjustment 
with mathematical accuracy in the 
great equation of our social system." 

Out of this must come what? Civil 
war? Possibly, if American statesmen 
are as blind to-day to the true situation 
of affairs as they were in 1860. The 
same question is presented to be an- 
swered now as then. " Shall the rights 
of man be subordinated to the rights of 



property?" There can be no social har- 
mony under the wage system of industry, 
because under it, the rights of man are 
unduly abased ,and the rights of prop- 
erty are unduly exalted. Mr. Ford truly 
says: 

" The extraordinary power which or- 
ganization gives to the conflicting inter- 
ests of employers and employed, makes 
an open rupture between those interests 
a national disaster, against which our 
present laws are entirely inadequate for 
the protection of the people. The ten- 
sion of our social system is necessarily 
rendered more sensitive by the threat- 
ening attitude assumed by those power- 
ful, organized forces, when controversies 
arise between them, and it is becoming 
daily more evident that unless measures 
be taken by the people to interpose their 
constitutional authority for the har- 
monizing of those ever-recurring disputes 
between the wage working and employ- 
ing interests, that society will be con- 
stantly menaced by suspension of pub- 
lic business, interference with ligitimate 
enterprise, and violations of • the public 
peace, thus leading the trend of evolu- 
tion in the direction of confusion and 
anarchy, rather than toward that scien- 
tific harmonizing of all interests under 
an equitable representative system, 
which should be the aim of all," 

In the truly christian spirit in which 
that great journal is conducted, the edi- 
tor concludes his lucid article as follows: 
",*In the holiday season, during which 
people are accustomed to cherish the 
christian principles of fraternity and a 
common responsibility, the question of 
how best to meet the emergencies of the 
situation may be profitably studied by 
the statesmen of the country. The Irish 
World has sufficient confidence in the 
patriotism of our law-makers, directed 
by an intelligent public opinion, to be- 
lieve that our evolution will be in the 
direction of security and harmony, not- 
withstanding the occasional clashing of 
powerful interests that mark its pro- 
gress." 

V, Selfishness Must be Dethroned. 

The time will soon come, I anticipate, 
for the abolition of all wrong;— for the 
dethroning of Mammon and the en- 
throning of the "Kighteous One." The 
people have become dissatisfied with the 
wage system of industry, because the 
substitution of machine for hand labor 
operates, under that system, to deprive 
labor of its equitable proportion of the 
increased wealth produced, capital ab- 
sorbing the lion's share. And the la- » 
borer has become simply a part of the 
machinery of production, the capitalist 
claiming the right to direct his motions, 
and really, to own him, body and soul. 
He is a mere " operative"— to be used or 
• discarded at the pleasure of the money- 
makers; and no more thought of, nor 



(32) 



any more essential to the "business" of 
the capitalists, than is a wooden cog in 
a mill wheel, nor even so much. If he 
work contenteHy at the price set by 
his "boss" for his labor, all is well. If 
he "strike," why shoot him! If he beg 
he is a tramp, to be imprisoned for va- 
grancy. If he die, it is nothing, or, 
rather it is fortunate all round. Others 
will gladly fill his place. He is a mere 
tool. His human identity is lost. That 
is the condition of the laborer under the 
wage system. The reason of it is that 
"money" only is all, under that sys- 
tem, that business is run for. 'It is to 
"make money" that all machinery is 
put in motion— that all "capital" is 
employed; and it will be so as long as 
private capital shall continue to employ 
labor. Under the co-operative system 
of industry, on the contrary, private 
capital being eliminated as a factor from 
production, the object of human effort 
will not be to "make money" — to aug- 
ment the fortunes of individuals, but to 
render all men, women and children com- 
fortable and happy. The end will be 
philanthropic. Selfishness will be des- 
troyed and in its stead, the common 
good will come forward as the only mo- 
tive of human action. Public spirit and 
philanthropy will take the place of love 
of self. 

But I agree with those who say that 
the condition of the common people is, 
on the whole, better to-day than it was 
one hundred years ago— better even than 
up to the time of the civil war. Farmers^ 
and wage workers dress better, live m 
better houses, which 'are better furnished, 
and they receive better wages. Oxen 
have ceased to plow the fields.' Ail men 
are better off, but the rich are vastly 
richer. Are the poor poorer ? I think 
not. The poorhouse itself is a home 
now ; it was a hell then. The prisoner 
in his cell is better oil now than one 
hundred years ago. The people have 
more freedom now than then. Imprison- 
ment for debt has passed away. We 
would not submit now for a day to the 
conditions that then existed. They 
were vastly worse than now prevail. 

What ails the world? It has advanced 
apace. There is dissatisfaction in Ire- 
land, but the Irish people are not as 
poor as they once were. They are not 
suffering want as they once" suffered. 
They live better than they once lived. 
But they have mentally advanced. 
Their minds are not greater perhaps, but 
they have received a new influx of ideas. 
All men have stepped upon a higher 
plane of civilization. The world is more 
enlightened than it ever was before. The 
'printing press has done its part to bring 
about this result,— the telegraph its 
part,— the railroad its part. Mankind 
have outgrown old conditions. They 
have learned that all wealth is the pro- 



duce of labor and mechanical skill.*" 
They are no longer content to see the 
lew," who neither toil nor spin, clothed 
in the costly fabrics made by the hands 
and brains of the many who do toil and 
spin. They are not content to see those 
who produce nothing, millionaires, while 
those who produce all tiie wealth remain 
poverty stricken— the "hewers of wood 
and the drawers of water" for an inso- 
lent, indolent, corrupt, sensual few, 
void of patriotism, void of honor, swol- 
len with self-conceit and mad with greed. 
Too long have the few idle been bowed 
down to, worshipped and obeyed by the- 
many industrious, as dogs cringe before 
their masters and whimper and whine 
at their feet, to be trod upon and ignom- 
iuously kicked out of the way of the 
"rich man clothed in purple and fine- 
linen." 

VI. Truth Invincible. 

It has taken nearly nineteen hundred 
years for the divine ideas of the Great 
Teacher whom the common people 
"heard gladly" to so leaven the minds 
of the many as to prepare them for an 
assertion of their inalienable rights uni- 
versally in Christendom. Granite walls 
disintegrate, crumble and fall to pieces; 
but the ideas of Jesus are eternal and in- 
vincible, though invisible. Heaven and 
earth may pass away, but his word of 
truth will not pass away. Institutions 
are evanescent, compared with ideas — 
perishable bodies of which ideas are the 
imperishable souls. Let the soul depart, 
and the body hastily decomposes. 
Hence, I say, that existing institutions 
must pass speedily away, that give to 
capital the gross earnings of labor, leav- 
ing to the brawny toilers merely a tithe 
of the products of their own industry 
and skill— merely enough of the wealth 
produced to afford the wealth producers 
the coarsest food and the scantiest rai- 
ment— in a word, bare subsistence. The 
chattel slave holder gave his slaves even 
more abundantly of the means of living 
than the wage slave holder allows liis 
slaves. Those twin "relics of barbar- 
ism" v chattel and wage slavery), are 
both outgrown and must soon become 
alike obsolete. Co-operation is inevit- 
able. Everything must be carried on 
shortly by co-operative effort, that is 
now carried on by wage labor. 

Civilization is a growth, an unfold- 
ment— like the growth of a tree— and the 
power that produces that growth or un- 
foldment is omnipotent— the power of 
truth, or, in other words, the power of 
God; for God is truth. The work be- 

* What immense consequences we have de- 
rived from the very simple proposition that 
the wealth of the nations does not consist in 
wealth that cannot be consumed, such as gold 
and silver; but in consumable wealth pro- 
duced by the incessant labor of society. 

Blangui.. 



(33 ) 



fore the reformer is, therefore, construc- 
tive and not destructive. Effete institu- 
tions, like our enemies, "will die of them- 
selves if we let them alone." Institute 
co-operative labor universally and pro- 
tective tariffs are at once outgrown, 
Institute the true system of finance and 
usury will die for want of something to 
feed upon. It is better to take away 
necessity than to say " Thou shall not;" 

Children well 'ed 
Will not steal bread. 

Here is the key to unlock the door of 
reform. All the evils, discords, and 
wrongs of society may be put an end to 
by applying a simple preventative — the 
Golden Rule put into law and crystal- 
iaed into institution.! A small boy once, 
it is said, prevented the breaking of the 
.great dyke that keeps the sea out of 
Holland, by inserting his little arm in 
the incipient leak. How easy that was 
done compared with the labor of pump- 
ing the sea out, if once the dyke was 
broken and the whole country deeply 
inundated. But the world is overflowed 
now, to a great depth, with the waves of 
selfishness. The flood will retire only at 
the bidding of him "Whom even the sea 
and waves obey"— but it will surely 
.retire. 

VII. Equal Advantages to All. 

Nothing new and untried (the reader 
must already have observed), is pro- 
posed in these unpretentious essays. The 
author only desires to see made of gen- 
eral application for the good of the many, 
a plan of co-operative effort that has 
already been in practical and successful 
operation for almost a quarter of a cen- 
tury in our country. for the good of the 
lew. It is a fact, well known and undis- 
puted, that all companies and corpora- 
tions chartered by the laws are essen- 
tially co-operative— railroad, bank, in- 
surance, manufacturing, commercial, etc. 

Let us extend, then, to the many the 
advantages of co-operative association 
now applied by the laws narrowly for 
the enrichment of the few at the expense 
of the many, and let us legislate always 
for the common benefit alone, so that 
all may have equal advantage of good 
laws, as it was designed they should 



tThe aggressive civilization of to-day, the one 
that will conquer the world and supercede all 
others, the one that nas proved the best for man, 
and that has lifted him up to higher planes than 
any other, is that built np«n and shaped by the 
teachings of Christ. The beet thoughts of all 
the best thinkers and writers upon the industrial 
problem have found nothing equal to the words 
" love thy neighbor as thyself, do unto others as 
you would have them do unto you.' 11 All correct 
philosophy, all sound teaching and reasoning, 
conduct as unerringly to these simple truths, 
which combine in themselves every essenti 1 
principle necessary to the solution of the indus- 
trial oroblem. A solution based upon these 
would abide, because it would bo founded on 
■simple justice between man and mAn.— •'The 
industrial Question."— Elkiws. 
8 



have by Washington and his compatriots 
who framed our democratic constitution 
of government one hundred y earn ago, 
and the peoples be thus enabled to retain 
possession of the wealth of products 
produced by their own industry and 
skill. In other words, more familiar and 
always acceptable to American ears, 
equal advantages to all and special priv- 
ileges to none, is all that is demanded in 
these pages as necessary to the complete 
emancipation of labor in the United 
States, and the realization by the peo- 
ple of the equality of rights mentioned 
in the Declaration of American Inde- 
pendence, as the inalienable birthright of 
all. 

The national banking institutions of 
our country, in their plan and method 
of establishment and support by the 
paternal bounty of the federal govern- 
ment, are recommended by the author 
of these pages to be taken as models for 
co-operative labor associations, to be 
built up, he insists, in precisely the same 
manner that the national banking asso- 
ciations of the United States have been, 
built up, that is to say, by the general 
government, — no new principle to be in- 
troduced and no essential change in ex- 
isting plans of association to be made 
by law — the- government of the nation 
extending to the many workers no 
higher advantages, privileges, helps or 
"paternal benefits of legislation,"— and, 
indeed, no other "benefits" whatever, 
than have already been, from the day of 
their first organization during the civil 
war to the present time, extended by it 
to the national banking associations of 
rich money lending non- producers- 
agents of British gold-monopolists. But 
this is just what the few that have so 
long enjoyed those bounties and benefits 
will, it is to be feared, never permit to 
be extended to the many, if by any 
means, peaceful or otherwise, they may 
be able to prevent it. Thefew must have, 
they think, advantages under this gov- 
ernment (organized to promote the gen- 
eral welfare) that the many may not 
enjoy. But the fight must be ^narrowed 
right down by the people to the following 
plain issue, viz: Shall the advantages 
now accorded by the law to the few be 
extended to the many as common bene- 
fits and rights. The people are. sover- 
eign, and no one has rightfully any pre- 
rogative or privilege that does not as . 
rightfully belong alike to each and all, 
and no one can acquire any prerogative 
or privilege that is not of right common. 
And this extends to all benefits within 
the power of government to bestow. 
Let there be no mouopoly that is not in 
accord with nature, as "The sweet, sweet 
love of daughter, of sister, and of wife." 

VIII. The "Dangerous Anarchists." 

But regarding the German Anarchists 
in this country, Gen. Win. T. Sherman 
said to the editor of the Christian Meg- 



r 



( 34 ) 









lster of Boston, Mass., in an interview 
at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York, 
during the time of the trial of Herr Most 
in that city for violent language reported 
by "detectives" to have been used by 
him, and for which he was afterwards 
sentenced to imprisonment for twelve 
months : 

" I do not believe," the old soldier said, 
"there is much danger from the Anarch- 
ists in this country. There is so much 
freedom of expression in the United 
States. That is our protection. Let it 
have full swing; but try them and hang 
them when they practice violence." 
When asked, the editor says, "if he 
would have freedom of speech abridged 
in any way," he answered : 

" We cannot have a sedition law in this 
country. Freedom of speecb and of the 
press are guaranteed by the Constitu- 
tion, and they had better be endured 
than to resort to remedies which are 
doubtful." 

"Endure" the freedom of speech and 
of the press ! " Endure" is a good word. 
It was evidently used by the patriotic 
old war veteran, who had fought so 
many brave battles for the Union and 
the constitution that the fathers gave 
us—it was evidently used by him as a 
sharpened shaft of irony. Freedom of 
speech and of the press to be " endured," 
so near the close of the nineteenth cen- 
tury ! It is an excellent text from which 
to preach a sermon to the millionaire 
monopolists on "patience." "Freedom 
of speech and of the press are guaran- 
teed by the constitution, and they had 
better be endured than to resort to rem- 
edies that are doubtful." 

The General did studv out a plan to 
beat Johnson and Hood, it is true, and 
he opened through Georgia, a line of 
march to the sea; but here, in New York 
he is at last balked. Bow to advise apian 
of campaign by the millionaire barons 
of Wall street, to overcome this dread- 
ful foe to the tyranny of monopolists— 
"freedom of speech and of the press," 
in the United States, is beyond the reach 
of the strategy of General Sherman ! 
" They had better be endured !" he coolly 
advises those greedy and uneasy "rich 
men," than to "resort to remedies that 
are doubtful." There may be, (he evi- 
dently thinks), masked batteries in the 
line of march against those old entrench- 
ments, thrown up by our venerable fore- 
fathers a. hundred years ago, that might 
render "doubtful" anv charge by those 
tyrants against the works. 

IX. A Very Dangerous Class. 

The American millionaires have be- 
come cruel kings— heartless despots! 
They have put an end to the equilibrium 
produced by competition, utterly des- 
troying competition, by combinations, 
trusts and "pools." To increase the 
price of products in their hands for sale, 



they lessen production, closing the mine»- 
or shutting down the mills and factories 1 ,, 
or procuring them to be shut down by 
large bribes to the owners. The propri- 
etor of an oatmeal mill in Des Moines, I 
am credibly informed, is paid by an 
eastern syndicate a bribe of several 
thousand dollars per annum, not to run 
his mill. No thinking man will deny that 
there must be a reconstruction of sys- 
tems of distribution of products. It 
will not do to allow syndicates of selfish 
millionaires to corner our bread and our 
meat, and control the prices of what- 
ever is essential to human subsistence, 
comfort and convenience that has a 
market value, levying extortionate trib- 
ute upon us without our consent, as they 
do now. Our situation is a thousand, 
times worse to-day, under the dominion 
of the millionaire monopolists of Wall 
street and Lombard street, than the 
worst that was feared by our fathers, il 
George Third had succeeded in conquering 
America. The British king did not pro- 
pose to set the price on all we have to 
sell and all we have to buy, as king Mo- 
nopoly does. Monopoly is an absolute 
Czar, and his ukase is become our only 
law. The legislative departments of 
states and nation are under his control 
— the judiciary are his obedient tools; 
and the executives (state governors and 
national president), are, as a rule, his 
creatures. We might truly say, were it 
not for universal suffrage, through which 
we may right our wrongs when we will, 

" The bright sun rises to hie course and light©- 
A race 01 slaves. *'' 

It is openly declared by the enemy that 
every peaceful and lawful effort of the 
people to regain their inalienable rights 
and lost liberties shall be met in this 
country, (as it is andever has been met 
in Europe), by coercion. 

Rev. Joseph Cook, in an address de- 
livered in Tremont Temple, before the 
" rich men" of Boston a short time ago, 
is reported to have announced the 
bloody ultimatum of the Anglo-Amer- 
ican monopolists in the following threat- 
ening words : 

" I say, come on with your schemes of 
confiscation and forced loans, graded 
income taxes and irredeemable currency 
under universal suffrage, then, under 
military necessity, and even here in the 
United States, we must get rid of univer- 
sal suffrage, and w e shall. Rather than 
allow these things we shall have one of 
the fiercest of civil wars." 

Such an expression of belligerent senti- 
ment, from such a man, in such a place, 
and before such an audience, is more 
significant of danger to American lib- 
erty and the peace of society than the 
mad ravings of all the alien Anarchists 
that ever landed upon our shores. Can 
any human utterance awaken the peo- 
ple to realize the great danger to pop- 
ular liberty that threatens from the 



W 



( 35 ) 



ravenous greed of monopolists, if this 
will not? How profound was the sleep of 
security of the American people in lSftO-1 
until compelled to open their drowsy 
eyelids— " aroused from sleep," like the 
"strongman armed" of Milton, by the 
bursting of rebel shells against Fort 
Sumter! So now, again, most danger- 
ous threats 61 rebellion and civil war bj' 
the monopolists, go unheeded. If the 
people speak through universal suffrage, 
as they certainly will speak, and, before 
very long, in favor of beneficent meas- 
ures of reform, aimed to counteract, in 
some degree at least, the centralization 
of wealth in the hands of millionaires, 
and secure to the workers (wage slaves), 
an equitable share of the produce of 
their own labor, the monopolists — (that 
eminent New England divine has the 
shameless effrontery to tell us—), "will 
inaugurate one of the fiercest of civil 
wars," and "as a military necessity," 
will "put down universal suffrage,"— and, 
no doubt, they will attempt (as did the 
southern slave-lords), to carry out, into 
practical rebellion, this diabolical threat, 
when the time arrives for the people to 
speak distinctly through the ballot box 
for their just rights, which time is, I 
trust, near at hand, yea, even at our 
very doors. 

X. The New and Better Era. 

It is only just to say right here, how- 
ever, that the shameful display by the 
Reverend Joseph Cook of his un-Amer- 
ican and unchristian sentiments, is not 
the mature voice of the better class of 
thinkers and writers of our "Athens" on 
which Bunker Hill monument looks so 
proudly down, ever keeping alive in the 
hearts and minds of her patriotic people 
the memory of Warren and his brave 
companions, the liberty-loving yeomanry 
of New England, who"se blood (shed in 
the glorious cause of freedom and inde- 
pendence), moistened the ground on 
which the lofty structure stands. 

It can ne ver be f orgo tten that Boston 
was the home of Wendell Phillips, who 
was pre-eminently the prophet of the 
new and better era about to dawn upon 
the world. And one of her most enlight- 
ened and venerable citizens, the Rev. 
James Freeman Clarke,* a man very emi- 
nent in literature and one of the most 
erudite scholars and original thinkers of 
any age or country, has said : 

"The time will come at last, long fore- 
told by prophet and sibyl, long retarded 
by unbelief and formalism, when wars 
shall cease and the reign of just laws 
take the place of force in the great feder- 

*James Freeman Clwrke passed away on Fri- 
day evening, June 8, 1383, at his home in Jamaica 
Plain, Boston, ai the ripe age of 78. Dr. Holmes 
gays of him: "Every utterance, every printed 
word of his is on the side of human freedom. A 
more useiul, a more beneficent, a -more devoted, 
a more snocessful, a happier life than hie we 
e-hall hardly find." 



eration of mankind. Christ will at last 
become in reality the Prince of Peace, 
putting an end to war between nations, 
war between classes in society, war be- 
tween criminals and the state, hi trade, 
instead of competition, we shall have 
co-operation, and all industry will re- 
ceive its just recompense." 

The delightful words above quoted give 
emphasis to both Old and New Testa- 
ment ideas that it is the only object of 
these essays to reiterate, amplify and 
enforce. That learned, christian teacher 
and saint has here stated, in a few pro- 
phetic words, what, when put into law 
and institution, will bring in the millen- 
nial day. The " perfect commonwealth" 
will be but the unfoldment of Christi- 
anity — the crystalization (through a 
fraternal association of the world's 
workers), of the ideas revealed in the 
Sermon of Jesus on the Mouut, into the 
pre-ordained, universal Christian repub- 
lic, the Umted States of tee World. 

XI. Cold Steel and Cold Lead. 

But tb^e readiness of armed guards 
and armed policemen in the United 
States of America (as well as in Ireland), 
to shoot into crowds of unarmed wOrk- 
ingmen and to break up public deliber- 
ate meetings, peacefully assembled and 
peacefully conducted — thus trampling 
upon the most sacred of popular rights, 
the right of free assembly and free 
speech, is, it is to be feared, only their too 
willing response to "secret orders in 
council," issued by the millionaire mo- 
nopolists, and by them designed to force 
an uprising of the masses, which will 
give the classes a pretext for a declara- 
tion of martial law and the (threatened), 
final suppression of popular suffrage in 
our country, as a "military necessity." 

Indeed military usurpation, it should 
be deeply impressed on all patriotic 
minds, is the only danger republics have 
to fear — the only foe that can destroy 
the American commonwealth, as it has 
strangled human liberty everywhere and 
in every age. Cold steel and cold lead 
penetrating the warm, palpitating hearts 
of patriots have spread the blight of 
famine over India, Egypt, Ireland, and 
all other countries where the British flag 
casts its Upas shadow, and where the 
cupidity of selfish man holds sway, as it 
does everywhere under the asgis of British 
law, and as it is beginning to do under that 
of American law, which bears too near a 
relationship tothelawsof Great Britain, 
being dictated largely by English capital- 
ists who send their agents over here for 
that pupose. 

Believing the danger to be imminent 
(organized capital having secured almost 
complete control already of the military 
arm of the American nation), the au- 
thor has devoted large space in this 
volume to a careful review of the organ- 
ization known as the "national guard" of 



( 36 ) 






the several states of the American Union 
(but more especially of that of Iowa, of 
whHi state he has been an humble citi- 
zen for thirty-six years), also an inquiry 
into the reason why our forefathers de- 
clared so positively against a standing 
army in time of peace, and why they 
were so much in favor of the " right of 
the people to keep and bear arms." 

There never has been a time, in the 
history of our country. I will say right 
here, when it stood the people more in 
need than it does to-day, to be prepared 
for the protection of their rights. 

There is an old English law that our 
fathers designee should be an essential 
part of the fundamental law of each 
American state, that "every man should 
be provided with weapons and know the 
use of them:" 

The great danger to republican free- 
dom to-day arises from a confusion of 
ideas in the minds of the American, 
many in reference to what constitutes 
"'militia," and what "a standing army." 
"Under the old idea" (General Sherman 
tells us) "every man should be enrolled 
in the militia." It would be well if we 
hold fast the "old idea" on this question, 
— the writer would venture to suggest,— 
even if the number of the militia should 
seem appalling, for the General says that 
"under that system the militia to-day 
would number probably one in ten, or 
about six million." Six million freemen, 
each, with a good gun above his cabin 
door, as our forefathers had (and as we 
ought to have, I will continue to insist 
and urge) , and all well drilled in the 
manual of arms, popular freedom would 
be secure, as our fathers meant it 
should be. For it was. as I have said, 
their design in founding the American 
commonwealth, that the people should 
be armed and the state disarmed, lest the 
state become independent of, above, 
and master of the people. In all despot- 
isms (like that which dominates Ireland, 
India, etc.), directly the opposite policy 
prevails — the people are disarmed and 
the state is armed; and we shall find 
ourselves in the condition of the inhab- 
itants of Ireland and India whenever the 
state is armed and the people disarmed. 
An advance guard of Red Coat Cava- 
liers have pitched their tents to-day in 
Wall street, New York, instead of on 
Boston common, as of old, and they are 
secretly engaged in the unrighteous task 
of building up, contrary to our funda- 
mental law, a standing army in our 
country in time of peace, as an instru- 
ment of corporate tyranny, to be con- 
trolled and used against the American 
producers by the agents of the European 
gold syndicates, that own a controlling 
interest in all of our railroads, tele- 
graphs, mines, oil lands, great manufac- 
tories, bonanza farms, etc. This is be- 
ing done under the false, but seem- 
iingly plausible and patriotic pre- 
text 01 "organizing an efficient mili- 



tia force," (sheep's clothing, con- 
cealing a ravenous wolf) — the people 
forbidden to "drill or parade with arms 
in their hands" — the secret purpose of 
the foreign enemy being to subvert the 
liberties of the American people, and to 
establish, on the ruins of our beneficent 
republic, a "stronger government" of 
money and bayonets, auxiliary to the 
British Empire, to be tibutary to Eng- 
land forever. This declaration the 
author would make with great distinct- 
ness of utterance and impressive em- 
phasis, so as to be heard by all patriotic 
Americans. If the bill to "nationalize 
the militia," that passed the Federal . 
senate last winter, be got through the 
house of representatives and signed by 
the president, that most devilish engine 
of corporate tyranny will be completed 
and ready for use, that is to say, st 
standing army ; and the American peo- 
ple will awaken to find themselves pris- 
oners of war. Any attempt by them to 
regain their lost liberty will be construed, 
by the corrupt courts, as "conspiracy 
against society" and a "strike" will be 
the deadline in the prison-pen of monop- 
oly. Does the reader start at this ? Let 
him look at the condition of Europe and 
Asia to-day — the condition of four-fifths 
of the human family. Nearly all are pris- 
oners of war to a few heartless tyrants 
and robbers. But those tyrants and rob- 
bers are no worse than are our railroad, 
coal and oil barons who, in many states, 
are the acknowledged dictators of all 
legislation, notably in New Jersey, Penn- 
sylvania, Ohio, and Illinois, and who 
control the United States senate, twenty- 
five of its members being, as has been 
already . mentioned, millionaires, who 
secured their places, not by their supe- 
rior abilities or devotion to the public 
good, but, it is commonly believed, by 
the corrupt use of money. 

% XII. Coercion is Barbarity. 

Whatever institutions will not stand 
without being propped up with swords, 
bayonets and Gatling guns, ought to 
topple and fall to the ground, never to 
be set up again . Let the laws be made 
for the welfare of the many instead of 
the aggrandizement of the few, and there 
will be no need of soldiers or armed po- 
licemen in any country under the sun, 
to keep the people under control, and 
prevent "labor riots." Peace-officers 
and the citizen posse camitatus are all- 
sufficient for any emergency in a free 
state . 

This one lesson must sooner or later 
be learned by all, viz: that coercion is 
barbarity, that pains, penalties, impris- 
onments, and punishments are savagery; 
for God has indeed given man but one 
prerogative in his dealings wich his fel- 
lowmen, which is to " return good for 
evil," since that is the unrepealed and 
unrepealable law of Jesus Christ. The 



( 37 ) 



fundamental idea of Christianity is to 
give only love for hate, to overcome evil 
with good, a doctrine that so appeals to 
the God-like in the heart and brain of 
universal man that it is not denied, in 
theory, by any, and never has been de- 
nied, in ancient or modern times; but it 
is admitted by all men to be as correct 
as a demonstration of Euclid. 

V, T hy has not this sublime doctrine 
been put universally in practice? There 
is but one correct answer to this ques- 
tion, — the "love of money— the root of 
all evil" — has been the only hindering 
cause. But is not this cause always op- 
erative? And will it not forever stand 
in the way of the enforcement of this 
divine doctrine? Well organized society, 
operating by concordant voluntary mo- 
tion, akin to theinstinctive, harmonious 
movements that distinguish a colony of 
honey bees, — in a word, democratic 
order displacing autocratic anarchy- 
displacing the systematic robbery (by 
means of coercive laws) of the many by 
the few — will cure the disease— chronic, 
because it has ever marked the degree of 
man's barbarity; for civilization is only 
another name for social order resulting 
not from coercion, but from equilibrium 
of interests, the even poise of the steel- 
yards in the hand of Justice, bestowing 
upon each an exact and equal share of 
the benefits of machinery — upon each an 
exact and equal share of God-bestowed 
manna. 

This, I insist, will bring unalloyed 
peace, concord, and fraternity, will ex- 
tinguish all violence, discord and hard- 
heartedness. As sugar sweetens water, 
so will the acceptance by mankind of 
the christian law— the Golden Rale— as 
the essential law of the new social sys- 
tem, sweeten all the relations of life. Our 
old" social system is based upon selfish- 
ness — that is to say, upon Paganism. It 
is just the opposite of the christian sys- 
tem, in which " no man has anything he 
calls Lis own, but all is common." The 
pagan system, (which Christianity was, 
in my opinion, intended to uproot and 
utterly destroy from the earth), is that 
System m which a few have everything 
which they call "their own" and nothing 
iscommon. That Christianity hasnotyet 
fully displaced paganism, is too plain to 
admit of denial. And that is what ails 
the world. ".Jesus," Edward Atkinson 
says, "established the equality of all 
men under the higher law, to which all 
forms of government, all statutes, all 
judicial systems, ^must of necessity be 
adjusted, in order that they may have 
anv duration among men. He thus laid 
the foundation of a true democratic 
principle of government which must ulti- 
mately control the relations of men to 
each other, and which will slowly but 
surely make way for neace, order, and 
industry, good will and plenty among 
all races of men." 

And here it may be truly remarked 



that the degree of civilization of states 
and enlightenment of individual minds 
is indicated by the degree of their ap- 
proximation to the christian plane — of 
their acceptance of the divine rule of 
overcoming evil with good. That nation 
is savage, pagan, barbaric, that ad\ ances 
to dominion through coercion, war, 
bloodshed, as Great Britain does; and 
that man or woman is a savage, a 
pagan, a barbarian, who upholds such a 
policy; for it receives no countenance or 
support from the teachings of the New 
Testament; and there is not a theologian 
in Christendom who dare call in question 
this statement for a moment. Give jus- 
tice and freedom to Ireland, India and 
Egypt — give justice and freedom to every 
people and to each and every individual* 
under the shining sun, and swords wiB 
be beaten literally into plowshares, 
spears into pruning hooks, and th^ 
prophesy will be at last fulfilled; ' : Na- 
tion shall not lift up sword against na- 
tion, neither shall they learn war any 
more." 

Yet, my reader, it is a mighty con- 
flict, the great anti-slavery struggle re- 
newed, the conflict of the ages, that is 
now before us. The people must imme- 
diately " fall in" at the beat of the long- 
roll and repel the enemy with vigor at 
the ballot-box, or soon nothing will be 
left them but anarchy and revolution 
as the inheritance of their children. The 
causes are actively at work that will 
inevitably produce this effect, unless pre- 
vented, as it will be, I trust, by the vig- 
ilance of a most patriotic, intelligent 
and enprgetic people, determined to pre- 
serve their inalienable rights now men- 
aced as never before. 

X IT. A Final Inquiry. 

Let us inquire finally, shall the consti- 
tution of the United States become an 
engine of tyranny and a bar to progress, 
its original object changed, its great pur- 
pose annulled by the usurpation, on the 
part of one branch of the triune govern- 
ment, of all the prerogatives and powers 
of the other two branches — the judiciary 
becoming tyrants?* The people appeal 
to the courts asainst the injustice of 
railroad corporations, for instance. A 
jury decides justly for the people. A 
corrupt judge sets aside the righteous 
verdict of an intelligent, impartial jury. 
The people carry up the case to the su- 
preme tribunal. This corporation-con- 
trolled tribunal sustaines the unright- 
eous decision of the corrupt lower court, 

•From the days of the Stuarts the (English), 
judges were servile, timid, and emmies of per- 
sonal liberty. Over and over again Parliament 
has interposed to sweep awav precedents whiah 
have coerced natural liberty and interpretations 
which have violated justice. For generations it 
seemed that the worst enemies of public and 
private liberty were these courts, whose duty it 
was to adjudicate equitaoly and to state the law 
with fairness.— " Six Centuries of Work and 
Wage*. -Hoobrs. 



( 38 ) 



and thus the sacred obligation of a plain 
and positive contract, the unrighteous 
courts, by collusion and wicked design, 
in the interest of corporate greed, annul, 
on the false plea of "public policy"— a 
dictatorial decree — the act of supreme 
tyra-nts, not of righteous interpreters of 
existing laws.f 

Shall corporations unduly influence 
legislation? A law clearly unconstitu- 
tional is passed. A standing army is 
created under the false name of "mili- 
tia." A select body of " state vegulais" 
are enlisted for five years and paid in 
Iowa to drill and parade in time of 
peace, though the supreme law of the 
commonwealth positively declares "No 
standing army shall b/kept up by the 
state in time of peace; and in time of 
war no appropriation for a standing 
army shall be 'tor a longer time than two 
years " The courts wink at this sweep- 
ing destruction of supreme law, because 
a mercenary army of "state regulars" 
is demanded bv corporate monopoly to 
shoot down strikers and overawe and 
coerce the workers into slavery. Has 
not the arbitrary will of a corrupt judi- 



ciary become our only law, and the so* 
called judges, are not they kings asabso 
lute in power as is the Czar of Russia? 

Ermined tyrants, supported by the 
bayonets of armed mercenaries— the 
minions of monopoly — are the "bloody 
anarchists" we have most cause to fear. 
Exact justice by the state to each indi- 
vidual will preserve everlastingly the 
public peace. When government " fears 
the people" to the extent that it must- 
arm detectives, policemen and guards to 
overawe them and shoot them down, 
does "government of the people, by 
the people, for the people," really 
exist?" Shall the executives of the 
states and of the nation become perm- 
anently supple instruments in the hands 
of corporate wealth to oppress the toil- 
ing many, exalting the military above 
the civil power at the demand of mo- 
nopoly?- And, lastly, shall the demo- 
cratic masses become actual prisoners 
of war to the plutocratic classes by th e 
passage of the bill to "nationalize the 
militia," which is now before congress , 
and which has already passed the aris- 
tocratic senate of the United States? 



ESSilY IV.— THE CURTAIN LIFTED. 



I, ANA.FCHfSM, Socialism and Individ- 
ualism. 

The red flag of Anarchy, I insist, must 
be left to wave on the other side of the 
'German ocean; for Americans will never 
look kindly on the display of auy flag in 
our country but the stars and stripes. 
The flag of our country, to our minds, is 
the only emblem of freedom. Millions 
of brave men have ijiven their lives to 
consecrate it to liberty. Our sons, 
brothers, fathers and comrades have 
been wrapped in its sacred folds. Let no 
man, who expects to be considered any 
other than an enemy to American free- 
dom, display any flag but the star- 
spangled banner among us— any colors 
but the red, white and blue on any pub- 
lic occasion. The problem of free gov- 
ernment for America is being solved right 
here in the United States, and neither 
Europe nor Europeans can help us solve 
it, except by seconding the efforts of 
patriotic Americans, enlisting and fight- 
ing under our starry flag. Its correct 
solution depends upon the growth and 
advancement among us of American, and 
not of European ideas. But the mad- 
ness of egotistical foreigners on our 
shores must not be made a pretext by 
the supple instruments of corporate 
greed (chiefs of police, mayors of cities, 
judges of courts and governors of states) , 
for the destruction of popular freedom— 
as has been done in the monopoly-con- 
trolled state of Illinois. 



tSee case of a. H. Cr*ne va. NT. W. R. R., Iovya. 



We expect the stars and stripes to be 
come the flag of the United States of the 
World — not forced upon mankind by 
bloody conquest, as the Britsh flag has 
been, but glaaly accepted by tbem 
through universal acclaim as the emblem 
of peace, unity and love; monarchy and 
aristocracy having perished from the 
earth, and democratic liberty having 
become the inheritance of every people 
beneath the sun. 

But what i* Anarchism? 

Anarchism is despair cf the ballot and 
dependence on the bullet. It is John 
Brownisra simple and pure. That is all. 
Let justice be done to all men, and there 
will be no such thing as Anarchism to 
molest or make afraid. While the peo- 
ple have the bxllot anarchism, as a polit- 
ical doctrine, will make few proselytes 
among thinking Americans. 

And what is Socialism ? 

Socialism is Christianity puf into ins- 
titution. It is the re-organization of the 
Pentecostal society, in which philan- 
thropy was the law, in which love of 
God and love of man was the religion. 
This is christian socialism. 

All that is new of socialism isitsname; 
the rest is as old as man himself. It be- 
gan in the beginning while he was still a 
cave animal. It will be seen in its per- 
fection when "God shall dwell with 
men." The name "socialism" is of for- 
eign and not American invention;- but 
the idea itself was first, in modern times, 

♦See case of G>v. B.R. Sherman v*. Aaditor J. 
L. Brown, Iowa. 



(39 ) 



formulated into noble expression, that 
reached the ears, minds and hearts of 
all mankind, by an American statesman, 
Thomas Jefferson, when he declared the 
God-given rights of life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness, "inalienable", and 
the people's will supreme. In this dec- 
laration is enfolded— as in the acorn the 
oak— the Tree of Liberty, under the 
broad- spreading branches of which an 
emancipated world will yet find shelter. 

It has besides, another venerable 
meamng— the help of the individual by 
the many and, vice versa, of the many 
by the individual. Enumerate, if you 
can, the multitude of workers that pre- 
pare for you and for me the means of 
subsistence and comfort; agricultur- 
ists, horticulturists, gardners. cotton 
growers, wool growers, cotton and wool 
manufacturers, silk workers, tanners, 
boot and shoe makers, hatters, tailors, 
potters, glass blowers, button makers, 
jewelers, blacksmiths, carpenters, cab- 
inet makers, bakers, etc., etc. Innumer- 
able hands are busy preparing good 
things for you and for me. From the 
man or the woman who discovered first 
the use of tire to the inventor of the 
steam eugine, all the dead since Adam, 
and all the 'living, "minister unto us." 
This ministration of the many to the 
one, (and a reciprocal devotion of the 
one to the many), is socialism. 

Make society perfect, so that there 
shall be no disharmony among men, but 
all shall find happy, useful and remu- 
nerative employment, that desire it; 
bringing p'e ity and comfort to the aged, 
the helpieos, the fatherless, and the 
widows, as well as to the strong, the 
active and healthful, and you will have 
realized the dream of Jefferson, and of 
all philanthropists and social reformers, 
irom luaiah to Wendell Phillips, in short, 
vou will have estab ished theionglooked 
for Christian Commonwealth, of which 
the Seimoa of Jesus on the Mount shall 
be the fundamental constitution, and 
the first christian society the model— a 
society in which "all things- are com- 
mon." 

vVhat is Individualism? 

Those who talk of " individualism" 
-talk Of what does not and cannot in the 
nature of things exist. There never has 
been such a thin.;, no, not even among 
the cave dwellers or mound builders, and 
there never will be, before the catastro- 
phe is reached when the bright 

"Sun shall be extinguished; 
And the stars 
Shall wander darkling ia ihe eternal space, 
Saylesa auu pathless, and the <cy eartn 
Swing blind and blackening in the moonless 

air " 
And the "last man" shall utter his "farewell" 
to tarth. 

While this is true, still I am not ready 
to call myself a "Socialist," I do not like 
to accept the foreign appellation, because 
the word savors of old world ideas. 
True, our religion is of the old world ; 



true, our liberty is derived from the 
thoughts of Milton, Vane, Eliot and 
Hampden, from ideas born in the brain 
of old world statesmen. Yet our liberty 
is American. Though it be admitted 
that the seed -germ did come from the 
old world, the tree owes its stateliness 
to the virgin soil in which it has grown. 
There are united in the tree (not found 
in the old world scion), the wildness of 
our mountains, the luxuriance of our for- 
ests, the loveliness of our prairies and the 
beauty of our lakes. Niagara thunders 
beneath its branches, and its foliage is 
copiously w r atered by her spray; and the 
tree displays a grandeur beyond that of 
the stateliest forest giant of the Yosemite 
valley. 

The German, the Frenchman, the 
Scandanavian, the Russian, the Italian, 
the Hungarian, the Bohemian, the 
Britain, etc., etc., are all quite welcome 
to sit down in the umbraguous 
shade of the grand old Tree of Liberty 
that our fathers planted. But they 
must not cut off a single branch or twig, 
to engraft thereon any foreign scion. 
Let the old tree grow into perfect sym- 
metry and beauty by its own God- 
deriyed energy, and become ladea with 
mellow and delicious fruit, of which men, 
women, and little children of all nations 
may, in welcome, partake. Its fruit 
must, however, be of one kind and one 
quality only— nothing of German flavor, 
nothing of French, nothing of Italian, 
nothing of Hungarian, nothing of Bohe- 
mian, nothing of British — it must 
be only a Brother Jonathan apple in 
flavor and kind. 

Under the pretext of individualism, 
the greedy few have ever imposed upon 
and robbed the generous many. The 
individual has been licensed to prey 
upon society. The false cry that " there 
must be norestraint put upon individ- 
ual enterprise," has let the wolf into the 
fold. The individual must lye held 
strictly to the path of righteousness. 
Soc iety ( I mean the ninety-and-nine) must 
be supreme, and the common welfare 
paramount. Society is bound to pre- 
vent waste of the common resources, as 
it is bound to prevent the spread of con- 
tagious disease. It must exercise su- 
preme control over tillage, manufacture, 
and the distribution of products. It 
must say, " No tobacco shall be cultiva- 
ted, no alcohol distilled, no swine fed, 
and no harmful products imported or 
distributed." The people must take the 
individual by the hand and say to him, 
" So far and no farther shalt thou go." 
The path of liberty is a straight path, 
parallel, if not identical with the path 
of righteousness. License is legalized 
anarchy, legalized robbery, legalized 
murder. It is the opposite of liberty. 
The social system permitting population 
to be increased to the farthest limit of 
support from the resources of land and 
sea, lakes and rivers, is the system that 



( 40 ) 



we must approach. All waste must be 
put a stop to. The com produced in 
the fields of Iowa, if not fed to swine or 
distilled into alcohol, would furnish 
wholesome food for at least twenty 
millions of human beings. America will 
support a population of one thousand 
millions in plenty and comfort, under 
proper social conditions, and the utili- 
zation of the soil for the production 
solely of "necessaries of life." 

II. American Ideas. 

The only foreign ideas that have taken 
root and grown on this side of the At- 
lantic, and that will still go on growing 
until the tree of liberty is full grown, 
came with the Mayflower Puritans and 
the regicides that followed them later, 
or were derived from the writings of Mil- 
ton, Vane, Eliot, Hampden, and the 
other great commonwealth's statesmen 
of 1he seventeenth century, who took 
them directly from the Bible. Milton 
says in his great work, ''A Ready and 
Easy Way to Establish a Free Com- 
monwealth :" 

"A free commonwealth was not only 
held by wisest men in all ages, the 
noblest, the manliest, the greatest, the 
jnstest government, the most agreeable 
to all due liberty and proportioned 
equality, both human, civil and christ- 
ian, most cherishing to virtue, and true 
religion, but also (I may say it with 
greatest probability) plainly commend- 
ed, or rather enjoined, by our Saviour 
himself to all Christians, not without 
remarkable disallowance and the brand 
of ge tilism upon kingship. God in much 
displeasure, gave a kins to the Israelites 
and imputed it a sin to them that they 
nought one ; but Christ evidently forbids 
His disciples to admit of any such 
heathenish government. 'The; kings of 
the Gentiles,' saith He, 'exercise lord- 
nhip oyer them; and they that exercise 
Authority upon them are called benefac- 
tors; but ye shall not be so ; but he that 
is greatest nmong you, let him be as the 
younger; and he that is chief as he that 
serveth.' The occasion of these. His 
words, was the ambitious desire of Zeb- 
id'ee'e two sons to be exalted above 
their brethren in his kingdom, which 
they thought was to be ere long upon 
the earth. That He speaks of civil gov- 
ernment is manifest by the former part 
of the comparison, which infers the other 
part to be always in the same kind. 
And what government comes nearer to 
this precept of Christ than a free com- 
monwealth, 'wherein they who are great- 
est are perpetual srivatits and drudges 
to the public; neglect their own affairs, 
yet are not elevated above their breth- 
ren ; live soberly in their families; walk 
the streets as other men, may be spoken 
to freely, familiarly, friendly, without 
adoration." 

Again Milton says : "If we were augbt 



else but sluggards or babies, we need de- 
pend on none but God and our own 
counsels, our own active virtue and in^ 
dustry. 'Go to the an b, thou sluggard, 
consider her ways and be wise; which 
having no prince, ruler or lord, provides 
her meat in the summer and gathers her 
fc>od in harvest,' which evidently shows 
us that they who think the nation un- 
done without a king, though they look 
grave or haughty, have not so mucfo 
true spirit and understanding in them 
as a pismire ; neither are those diligent 
creatures thence concluded to live in 
lawless anarchy or that commended; 
but are set the examples to imprudent 
and ungoverned men of a frugal and self- 
governed democracy or commonwealth;, 
safer and more thriving in the joint 
providence and counsel of many irtdv-KS- 
trious equals, than under the single do- 
minion of one imperious lord. * * 
Nothing can be more effectual to the 
freedom of the people than to have the 
administration of justice and all public 
ornaments, within their own election.'* 

The ideas of liberty that have entered 
my mind have been derived by me from 
the Declaration of American Independ- 
ence, the history of the American gov- 
ernments, colonial, state, and national,, 
but more particularly from the New- 
Testa ment, as understood and inter- 
preted by our Puritan forefathers, and 
from these sources onty.* The "ism"' 
that I have advocated during the sixteen 
best years of my life, is called "Nation- 
alism," or popularly, "Greenbackism," 
— the latter a purely American designa- 
tion and name, expressive of the leading 
measure of reform demanded by the 
patriotic leaders, Wendell Phillips, Peter 
Cooper, Benjamin F. Butler, James By 
Weaver and the rest — the abandonment,, 
by all nations; of the barbarism of 
specie and of specie-basis money, and 
the adoption by them of legal-tender 
government scrip, and its utilization 
universally for the building up of co- 
operative industry and the suppression 
of wage slavery, the monopoly of lands, 
mines, etc. It is indeed the lever of the 
old Syracusian, lifting the world up to 
the lofty plane of universal freedom, 
happiness, prosperity, plenty— abrogat- 
ing poverty and rendering our earth an 
Eden o! bliss. 

But I will not be so very dishonest as 
to try to draw a vital distinction where 
there exists fundamentally no ground of 
real difference. Mr. II. M. Hyndroan, a. 
distinguished English socialist writer, in 
his Historical Basis of Socialism in 
England, says: "Socialism is simply 
that science that/insists upon the worker- 
having, first, free access to the materials 
of production, second, free use of the tools 

*My for< parents wore all col nial people: my 
great grandnrt s continental soldiers nnder 
Preccott and Washintftoi . May not patriotic 
B"ntiments be, to a considerable degree, inher- 
ited? 



( 41 ^ 



of production, and third, free use of the 
medium of exchange," which- definition is 
in fact,the creed of all true democrats, and 
all true republicans, and all true green- 
backers— yea of all true patriots and 
philanthropists, who believe in popular 
rights, and the prosperity of the many 
of every nation and country the world 
over, call them by whatsoever name you 
may. Really, all philanthropists, and 
all advocates of the rights of man, have 
but one creed, viz: Peace and justice, 
equality and love, enlightenment and 
industry. 

III. Hessian Ideas. 

Apropos to the above I will say, how- 
ever, that the "Co-operative Common- 
wealth" of Laurence Gronlund does not 
exactly correspond with my idea of a 
trite democratic state. It is, he says, the 
tarrying out to completion the Trades- 
Union principle, "loyalty to leadership" 
— society acting as a unit under the 
direction of a, master mind, who will 
hold office "during good behavior." 
" When they had hit upon ihe right lead- 
ers," he declares, "they have been will- 
ing to trust their whole collective power 
into theirhands. ■* * * That is the sens- 
ible, practical method," he says, "which 
workingmen always adopt whenever 
they associate to accomplish anything, 
as is exemplified in English Trades- 
Unions. Workingmen know that the 
direction of affairs ought tobeafuuction 
of the competent, as much as the plan- 
ning of a suspension bridge is, and not a 
play for numbers." 

.1 insist that this thought, approving 
in. principle a dictator, is. not American, 
but Bismarckian,/. e. German. It is that 
of a mind schooled to one-man power. 
The men of the Mayflower would have 
repudiated it—as will their deeendents. 
In the Co-operative Commonwealth, Mr. 
Gronlund says, " Every citizen has a life- 
tenure somewhere." The American mind 
will never consent to each person becom- 
ing merely a brick fixed in the wall of the 
commonwealth. He must be a living, 
expanding personality, with infinite 
hopes and infinite possibilities before 
him.. Mo man here has ever had a fixed 
life tenure in any social position,but the 
negro slave. His position was fixed. A 
fixed position is a condition of hopeless 
servitude. The lining man is by nature 
progressive. Fixity is stagnation and 
social death— e.g. Chinese civilization. 

Nothing can be more an ti- American, 
and, I think, anti-democratic, than the 
following words of Mr. Gronlund, He 
says: "Experience has shown that the 
responsibility to many is, in ordinary 
cases, no responsibility at all. We there- 
fore hold that if these directing func- 
tionaries are to be made responsible for 
their work, they must be made respon- 
sible to some one person. * * * The 
subordinates elect; the superiors dis- 
miss. And that it will work well in prac- 



tice, the Catholic Church may teach us 
Cardinals elect the Pope; the priest? 
nominate their bishopR and monks their 
abbots. The church, by-the-way, the 
most ingenious of human contrivance* 
— can teach us many a lesson, and we 
are fools if we do not profit by them." 

Though this sort of system, mav, in 
his opinion, "work well in practice," Iv. 
church and state in the old world; I 
insist that it is not tlemocratic — itis nor 
American. If such a system isno.t auto- 
cratic, then I am in the dark as to what 
autocracy is. To be sure, Mr. Gronlund 
is too knowing a man to make, in New 
England, an open and avowed attack 
upon democracy, / e., "haul down the 
American flag;" but he asks his readers 
timidly the question : " Now, is this not 
democracy?" I answer emphatically, 
no. It is only the mediaeval church 
secularized— stripped of its religious 
functions, and made strictly a political 
machine. It is history repeating itself; 
for this " machine" will take in hand all 
the work the Church once did — educa- 
tional, moral, eleemosynary; — (relig- 
ious excepted)— religion being outgrown r 
and God eliminated from the universe, 
according to Mr. Gronlund, who says: 
"The men of science assume the falsity 
of all theological dogmas. * * *.-' The 
church knows nothing worth knowing.*" 

These ideas are " Hessian" (to use an? 
expressive word, the meaning of which 
is well understood by all Americans), 
and should be "coralled" as he Hessian 
troops under Kawle were at Trenton, 
and sent back to the Fatherland, on 
parole of honor, not to return during 
this " War of Independence." 

I believe in prophet leaders, like Wen- 
dell Phillips; but not in irresponsi- 
ble dictators, lik^ Bismarck. Gladstone. 
Parnell and Powderly are prophet lead- 
ers — teachers of the peoples* were- 
Lincoln, Washington and John Brown. 
But Bismarck is an irresponsible (to 
the people) dictator-the sort of leadership 
Mr. Gronlund believes m, if I rightly: 
understand him. 

The American Co-operative Common- 
wealth will know no Bismarcks. ..no 
cringing to greatness, no recognition of 
"superior-'," and no German contempt 
of woman. Tfc will be a community -of; 
equals. Public opinion will govern— 
will appoint and remove officials— nor 
Avill it be the opinion of one sex only, 
but that of all men and all women, ex- 
pressed through the ballot box. Ger- 
man socialism is, I think, the prattle of 
neophytes — of beginners in the study of 
the doctrines of human liberty. The 
ordinary American boy is two hundred 
years in advance of the most enlight- 
ened German savant, in the knowledge 
of human rights. And for a race that 
has for thousands of vears been en- 
slaved by petty lords- -Bismarcks— so- 
called "competent leaders' '-^-domiiia tecl 



( 42 ) 



by tyrants, until it believes in that sort 
of abomination— knowing nothing bet- 
ter and being mentally incapable of 
forming a correct conception of Amer- 
ican liberty and equality, to presume to 
instruct Americans in social and polit- 
ical economy, is the cliiuax^of German 
egotism. 

We have the "referendum" already. 
How many states voted this \ear di- 
rectly upon a law- to abolish the German 
saloon? We have what is as good as, 
if not better, than the "labor check," we 
have "lawful moivy." When we have 
extended the benefits of incorporation 
to the toilers, that heretofore have 
accrued mainly to capitalists;— the 
"wage workers combining in their own 
interest, aud becoming incorporated 
•under th»» law for peaceful and legal 
action, to do their work, in a way that 
will bring them the largest return." as 
advocated by Hon. 8. B. Klkins, in his 
Industrial Question— a pamphlet of only 
thirty -six pages, but which, in my opin- 
ion, contains tenfold more of practical 
wisdom than all the two hundred and 
seventy-eight pages of Mr. Laurence 
Gronlund's "Co-operative (German) 
Commonwealth," we shall have reached 
the goal that all true social reformers 
are striving to attain— christian co-oper- 
ation. 

The objection, it seems to me, that it 
is not American, will apply to Edward 
Bellamy's com mon wealth outlined in 
""Looking Backward," the same as to 
Laurence Gronlund's. Its germinal idea 
is not the town meeting, but a standing 
army. 

It is a mistake to say that any great 
social revolution is impending in Amer- 
ica. The American government, when 
controlled by all the people — men and 
women — will give freedom to labor, and 
a just reward to industry, without ajar 
and without any change or '"amend- 
ment" of our fundamental law by 
merely extending to Mie many the ben- 
efits of legislation now appropriated by 
ifche few. 

IV. War a Dangerous Expedient. 

Behind the mad methods of the An- 
archist leaders, is Socialism, as behind 
the mad methods of old Uosawatomie 
Brown, was Abolitionism. 

Socialism is the emancipation of the 
>v»ge slaves, as Abolitionism was the 
emancipation (if chattel slaves. FA'ery 
branch of the true vineof modern social- 
ism springs from the self same root — the 
Sermon of Jesus on the Mount aud the 
Declaration of American Independence. 
From that same root sprang also Abol- 
itionism. 

John Brown believed that the chattel 
slaves could be freed only by war. The 
Anarchists believe that the wa^e slaves 
can be freed only by war. Very few 
.Abolitionists shared this belief with 



John Brown, and very few Socialists 
share this belief with the Anarchists. 
The chattel slaves were freed, I admit, 
through the immediate agency of war— 
a rash, cruel, uncalled-for war, forced 
upon the people by the madness of a few 
"extremists." south and north. Its 
baleful effects will be felt to the end of 
time. The future historian of the " De- 
cline and Fallot" the American Republic," 
1 am apprehensive, will record as the 
duvet result of this dreadful, war, the 
extinguishment of American liberty, the 
melancholy historic page reading, it may 
possibly be, in words of the following 
sad import, viz : 

"The northern armies fought for the 
preservation of the Union, which meant 
to the northern soldiers the triumph of 
free labor and the destruction of chattel 
slavery; but to the far-seeing statesmen 
of the north it meant the exaltation of 
the Hamiltonian idea of government, 
that is to say, centralization and class 
rule. The southern armies fought for 
'state rights," which to the southern 
planters, who were the heart and soul of 
the southern armies, meant the preser- 
vation of chattel slavery; but to the 
far-Siting statesmen of the south it 
meant the exaltation of the Jeffersonian 
idea of government, that is to say, de- 
centralization and mass rule." 

Indeed it is quite possible for demo- 
cratic liberty to he entombed at Wash- 
ington a century before the American 
people become fully aware of its death. 
History will certainly go on to state, 
what we already see to be the melan- 
choly truth, that " Soon after the sur- 
render of the Confederate forces at Ap- 
pomattox and the disbandonment of 
the northern and southern troops, mil- 
lionaires arose in great numbers in the 
north, enriched by the impoverishment 
of the producers, through the exaction® 
of corporate extortion, a vicious mon- 
etary system, excessive taxationby gov- 
ernment, and the subjection of the indus- 
trial classes under a cruel system of 
wage slavery, supported by the bay- 
onets of mercenary guards, detectives, 
and policemen, and by tyrannical legisl- 
ation,* and corruption in high places. 
The most honorable dignity — the office 
of United States senator, once proudly 
rilled by statesmen and patriots like 
Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Sumner, Doug- 
las, and Thurman. became a thing of 

*The so-called "conspiracy law*' passed by 
thi Illinois legislature last winter, at the bid- 
ding of monopoly, is now (18S9) being turned 
against the C, B. &Q. strikers. By the help of 
detective*", (professional perjurers), monopoly 
exp< cts, through the operation ot ''conspiracy 
laws" 1 to conquer the toilers and break up their 
rwmbinatioue for self-protection. The mo^t in- 
fluential and patriotic 1 ;aders of the Brotherhood 
of Locomotive Engineers involved in the strike, 
will be sent, if possible, to the penitentiary ... 
There will be gotten up, by the detectives, a 
bomb-throwing scare, < qual to the Salem witch- 
scare of o d if the p ople do not ooen their 
eyes and frown down the sneaking fraud. 



( *3 ) 



barter and sale to the highest bidder for 
gold, public spirit and patriotism died 
out and became extinct in the hearts of 
the so-called "statesmen/' and the mod- 
est stars of liberty withdrew from 
human vision, as the glaring sun of mo- 
nopoly arose." 

Can' the shaekels ever be broken off 
the hands and feet of the wage slaves by 
means of bloody war? The attempt 
must, if tried, prove to be a mostdpubt- 
ful and dangerous experiment to us, as 
it proved to the ancient Romans, invol- 
ving the ruin of their venerable republic, 
that had stood, proudly defying the rage 
of all foreign foes, for hundreds of years; 
but at last it fell 'by civil discord and 
strife. Let the young American patriot 
read attentively Rome's instructive 
history, aud be taught by her sad ex- 
ample never to iavor methods of vio- 
lence and war for the righting of social 
and political wrongs in a free common- 
wealth. Those methods are, however, 
always quickly seized upon by monop- 
olists to 5 further tpeir greedy purposes, 
though more fatal, in the end, to the 
welfare of the rich than of the poor. But 
when avarice gets possession of the soul, 
patriotism, reason, and even common 
seuse are all driven out. It was the in- 
satiable avarice of the rich that ruined 
ancient Rome. The Gracchi interposed 
to save their country and to preserve 
the legal rights of the people to the lands, 
hy the peaceful suffrage -of the tribes. 
The sacred tribunes, the patriotic sons 
of Cornelia, are stricken down— mur- 
dered by Patrician violence, that over- 
threw the ballot, trampled underfoot the 
constitution, anna led the ancient stat- 
utes and seized ruthlessly upon the lands, 
thus rendering life to the Plebians insup- 
portable. Behold Mariiis "extinquish 
i«-ll just and regular government in the 
blood of those who were alone qualified 
to sustain it" — Sylla "stay his ra.ge of 
folood only fur want of victims" and 
Antony ''exult at beholding the heads of 
his enemies.f" The American republic 
will perish, it may be/, as did that of 
Borne, ending in a, line of military des- 
pots and, perhaps, without even one 
Marcus Aurelius to relieve the unloveli- 
ness of the picture. 

W. "Coercion is English, You Ksow." 

I believed, with the peaee-loving 
Friends of Pennsylvania in I860, that 
public opinion alone without war 
would, in 'a little while, free the chattel 
slaves. I believe with them now that 
public opinion alone without war, will, 
in a little while, free th; wage slaves. 

+That of Cicero, the orator, was received by 
him with the joy of victory. He gazed on it 
with singular pleasure. Fulvia, the wife of 
Antony, forced open the jaw and pricked and 
tore the tongue of the dead patriot with the 
point of a bodkin which she took from her 
hair.— " Ferguson's Hist. Rom. Rep." 



But I sav to my countrymen to-day 
what might most appropriately have 
been said to them in 18o0. when John 
Brown was executed at Harj e 's Ferry, 
We are, I am sadly apprehensive, on the 
eve of troublous times. 

Listen, my countrymen : 
American History is repeating- itsrl '. 

War, fierce and relentless, has already 
been declared by Capital against labor; 
and the monopolists are nervously 
awaiting the passage of the corrupt arid 
insane measure, now before our Congress, 
which has passed our plutocratic Senate, 
and which is designed to place in the 
hands of the employers of labor the con- 
trol of the entire national military 
power, to he used by them a gainst the 
toilers, (as did the Buchanan adminis- 
tration place all in thr hands of the 
s'a've power.) The hanging of the four 
Anarchists at Chicago for the new (and 
■before- unheard- of-m America ) capital 
crime of "Consniracv against Society,' 1 
was, I believe, planned and carried out 
by the enemies of popular liberty, to pre- 
pare the public mind for the passage bv 
Congress of this accursed bill, and other 
tyrannical laws, under the pretext of 
" protecting the people against the dan- 
gerous class,"— that is, against them- 
sel ves ! 

This cry of "Anarchist" is a gigantic 
fraud. It is, in mv opinion, raised to 
awaken the fears of the people, and thus 
blind the eyes of their reason, as has 
been successfully done during the past 
twenty years, by the kindred cry of 
"Southern outrage" — a cry which has 
ceased to be effective — a means that has 
ceased to rally the north and solidify 
the south. 

Another bugbear must be invented, or 
monopoly los^s its cancerous hold 
upon the throats of the people. The 
German "Red Republicans," the ''bloody 
Anarchists," that have given Bismarck 
the nightmare so often and so long op- 
portunely, for the base designs of mo- 
nopoly, appear among us ! 

Can the designing few thus hoodwink 
the many and continue still to govern 
this country, enslaving and robbing the 
producers? Wealth is th6 produce of 
labor, and without slavery or robbery 
of some kind or other of the toilers, 
( wage workers and farmers) , the products 
of labor connot possibly leave the hands 
of the many to center in the hands of 
the few. The wage slave-holder o>f the 
north is not at all different in mind and 
disposition from the chattel slave-holder 
of the south, of ante-Vallum days. We 
know what Americans will sacrifice and 
suffer that they may hold their fellow- 
men in bondage. The difference in action 
of northern and southern men depends 
on whose ox has been gored. 
, And this thought, it seems to me. de- 
serves the profoundest attention- of the 
reader— deserves, above: all others, the 
fastest hold of his mind. It will be to 



(44 ) 



him an electric light, equaling in bright- 
ness the noonday sun-blaze ; and the 
"lion in the way" to the temple of free- 
dom is revealed under its rays, and the 
difficulties to be met along the path of 
progress are made apparent. The 
struggle to emancipate the wage slaves 
will be (without the most careful pro- 
cedure on the part of all peace-loving 
patriots), an exact repetition of the 
struggle to emancipate the chattel slaves; 
and for the same reason — selfishness, 
greed, inhumanity, savagerv, displayed 
by those who fatten on the fruits of 
other's toil. 



VI. Class 



Mass. 



Was John Brown any better thought 
of by the chattel slave holders than the 
judicially murdered Chicago Anarchists 
are thought of by the wage slave-holders? 
If the whole Union had been a chattel 
slave-holding republic then, as it i« a 
wage slave-holding republic now, who 
would have arisen in this country to do 
John Brown reverence? He would have 
ived only in the hearts of the blacks for 
whose freedom he died. The executed 
Anarchists of Chicago will live forever m 
the hearts of the wage slaves, white and 
black, the world over, for whose freedom 
they as literally"died. 

The universal "rebel yell" of the cap- 
italistic press, approving the unlawful 
execution of the Chicago victims of mo- 
nopolistic tyranny, convinces me that 
the designing leaders, under pay of cor- 
porations, turn now to Anarchist perse- 
cution as their only straw to grasp at 
while they sink beneath the waves of 
popular condemnation. The arrest and 
imprisonment, for a year, of Herr Most 
in New York, for words spoken, certainly 
not meriting any attentionr—of no signif- 
icance whatever, of no more "bloody 
character" — nor half so much so — as are 
the words uttered every Sunday from 
many of the pulpits in our cities and 
towns, against the workingmen— is but 
a link in the chain that is being forged 
by the capitalistic "machine" to bind 
the hands and feet of the American peo- 
ple. 

As a specimen of ordinary pulpit phil- 
osophy on which the "rich man" is 
regularly regaled, I copy the following 
from a late sermon preached by the -Rev- 
erend E. H. Hall, of Cambridge, Massa- 
chusetts. He says:— 

" If society is the sacred thing we have 
shown it * - * anything that endan- 
gers its existence is a grave offence. * * 
Then there is such a thing as crime, and 
crime deserves whatever punishment so- 
ciety inflicts upon it. * * * If the social 
order is a sacred thing, then no individ- 
ual life must stand in the way. * * * 
The integrity of society is more sacred. 
* * * It cannot be too plainly declared 
that this continent is to be the home, 
not of lawless and irresponsible masses. 



but of orderly and well regulated . so- 
ciety:" Which may be illustrated as, 
follows: 

Society, (the "rich man"— or Dives), 

vs. 
The Masses, (the common people who 
hear Jesus gladly.) 

Now comes "Society," the "rich man," 
into court and pleads that it (he) is 
"sacred"— that the "masses" refusing 
to bow the knee, is crime "deserving 
whatever punishment society {Dives) 
inflicts"— that society is more sacred 
than "Individual life" that this con- 
tinent is "not meant to be the home of 
lawless, irresponsible masses, but of or- 
derly and well regulated society." To 
this the masses appear and make an- 
swer, that the greatest good to the 
greatest number is sacred, and must and 
shall be enforced ; and that whatever 
stands in its way must succumb and dis- 
appear; that "sacred law" is the fairly 
expressed will of the "irresponsible 
masses;" that "social order,'* not in 
accord with the will of the majority, is 
death— the decomposing corpse of Lib- 
erty ; that our fathers forsook "social 
order," produced by "law" (coercion) 
for freedom; lhat there can be no true 
"social order" except when produced by 
exact justice to all men— the inalienable 
rights of all to "life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness," being made secure, 
rendering pains, penalties, and imprison- 
ments obsolete— they ^ perishing from 
the earth," along with their parent, Tyr- 
anny ; and that our pilgrim fathers dedi- 
cated this continent to the "irresponsi- 
ble masses," who know no law but " the 
State'*- collected will." 

At Lexington, on the morning of the 
19th of April, 1775, Major Pitcairn 
ordered the "enemies of social order, 
the "lawless masses" there assembled, 
to "lay down their arms and disperse.!" 
Not being immediately obeyed he 
promptly inflicted "punishment" upon 
them in the name of "sacred social or- 
der"— killing eight. Whereupon the "law- 
lens "masses," from every town In New 
England, hear and far, hastened to Cam- 
bridge, where my learned friend, Rev. R. 
H.Hall, now "holds the fort" for "so- 
cial order." 

"While -the first oath of freedom's, gun 
Came on the blast from Lexington, 
And ConcoH. roused, no longer tamo. 
Forgot her old baptismal name, 
Made hare her pntr'ot arm of power. 
And swelled the discord of the hour," 

I am proud to say that Daniel Brown, 
my own great grandfather, in the ranks 
of the New Hampshire militia, hurried 
forward to Cambridge, aceoutered wiih 
good rifle, powder-horn and shot-pouch., 
from his cabin near Moultonboro, away 
up at the head of Lake Winnepesockee. 
to fight against the same kind of "social 
order," (tyranny), that my esteemed 
christian brother (Rev. E. H. Hall 



(45) 



pleads so eloquently for now, and that 
he helped to man the stone wall on 
Breed's Hill, and to "hold that fort" 
against the "friends of social order;" 
but, on finally retreating with his com- 
rades, he received serious injury ("pun- 
ishment") from a cannon - ball, fired 
against the " lawless masses " from a 
British ship. 

To overthrow democratic government 
(mass rule) and to introduce perma- 
nently plutocratic government (class 
rule) " } is the deep laid and well matured 
purpose of the classes, to the accom- 
plishment of which purpose tney have 
been moving cautiously, "so as not to 
arouse opposition," ever since the sur- 
render of Lee. It was their design in 
1880, I always shall believe, to inaug- 
urate an emperor in the person of Gen- 
eral Grant. That plan having signally 
failed, their only hope mow is to hold the 
country under their control by a "scare," 
of some kind or other, until their design 
to destroy the republic can be success- 
fully carried out, through the instru- 
mentality of martial law, and the put- 
ting down of universal suffrage, "as a 
military necessity," as Rev. Jobeph Cook 
outlined in his Tremont Temple Address. 

Soon present systems of production, 
land ownership, and distribution of pro- 
ducts, it is plain to be seen, must break 
down and come to an end, under univer- 
sal suffrage. This the classes well know. 
When broken down and co-operation 
becomes the law they know also that 
there will cease to be rich and poor. 
Equality of fortune will universally pre- 
vail. The masses being well-to-do, will, 
by voluntary associated action, provide 
bountifully for the wants of all the 
helpl£%. When the three fundamental 
questions shall be fairly put to the 
American people for solution : 

First: Shall wage industry be abol- 
ished, and shall co-operative industry be 
substituted in its place? 

Second: Shall the lands become the 
common inheritance? and 

Third: Shall the people control the 
medium of exchange for the common 
benefit ? When it shall be apparent, I 
say, that this triumvirate of vital ques- 
tions have come forward to be answered 
by an affirmative "aye"— spoken with 
a loud voice by the ninety-aud-nine, 
then will there be such a manifestation 
of diabolical tyranny by the enemy — 
such an effort made to put down free 
speech, free press, free assembly, and 
finally, to suppress the freedom of the 
baMot, or universal suffrage, as was 
never known in Christendom before; be- 
cause it will be the casting out of thelast 
devils of the kind that "go out hard "— 
it will be the last effort of the Satan of 
selfishness, to save his throne and head — 
it will be the winding up of the rule of the 
Antichrist of unrighteousness, and the 



inauguration of the Prince of Peace,* 
That day is now right here at our 
doors, and the trinity of divine questions 
are now before the American people for 
an affirmative answer. This is my ex- 
planation of the cause of the " troublous 
times " near at hand. Only wise states- 
manship and patriotic leadership of the 
people will prevent civil war. The con- 
trol of the military power of the nation 
must not, I insist, pass out of the 
hands of the people into the hands of 
monopoly, if we would have peace The 
moment the bill to "nationalize the 
militia" becomes a law, every wage 
worker will be a prisoner of war, and to 
advise a strike will be death or impris- 
onment in penitentiary for life, for the 
new crime of " Conspiracy against So- 
ciety." 

VII. War Clouds. 

The trend of affairs in the United 
States is now unquestionably m the di- 
rection of civil commotion. Ideas an- 
tagonistic to each other, that will not 
coalesce, that will not fuse, are they not 
rapidly organizing men into vast asso- 
ciations? — on tke one band, I admit, of a 
peaceful character, relying on the ballot 
(th9 Farmers' Alliance, the Knights of 
Labor, and the various Workingmen's 
Unions;) but on the other hand, of a mili- 
tary character,relying upon the bullet<the 
national guards, armed detectives and 
armed policemen— the bloodhounds of 
capital, the mercenary minions of cor- 
porate tyranny.) That which is a peace- 
ful, sleeping lion to-day, may be sud- 
denly aroused from sleep and become 
fearfully warlike to-morrow. . 

There appeared in the Chicago Times 
just the other day the following signifi- 
cant expression of belligerant sentiment: 

"Gatling guns, with brave men behind 
them, are the true remedy for about all 
the strike troubles." 

To which Mr. Powderly, among other 
words big with meaning, promptly re- 
plied: "Be careful! Workingmen" who 
hint at force, or the use of explosives, 
are called 'Anarchists.' * * * Ke- 
member, that ii the day arrives when 
the disputes between labor and capital 
must be settled by force, there will be 
more strikers to handle firearms than 
men to oppose them." 

I call this kind of talk, "advance 
pigket skirmishing ''—(threatening words 
that precede determined action.) To b# 

♦Employers have constantly predicted that 
ruin would come on the great industries of the 
country if workmen were better paid and better 
treated. They resisted and have resisted np to 
the present day, every demand which workmen 
have made for the right of association, for the 
limitation of children's and women's labor, for 
{be ehortening'of hours, for the abolition of truck, 
for the protection of their workmen's lives and 
limbs from preventable acccidenta, and arenow 
appealing to the doctrine of liberty of contract, 
after having for centuries denied the liberty. — 
"'Six Centuries of Work and Wages. — Soosas. 



( *«) 



sure, the workinginen will answer all 
along the line discreetly, and not rashly. 
The flames of civil war may be, at any 
moment, enkindled by indiscretion and 
rashness, to be extinguished only in a 
deluge of blood, and the destruction of 
countless millions of wealth. Human 
nature is the same to-day as it was one 
hundred years ago ; and the people of 
America are just as jealous of their lib- 
erties now, 1 trust, as thev were when 
the " minute men" of ^Sew England has- 
tened to Lexington, Concord and Cam- 
bridge, rifle in hand, and rallied to the 
support of the patriot cause, under the 
leadership of Putnam, Warren . and 
Washington. Let me kindly, but dis- 
tinctly, tell the enemy of popular rights, 
(who seems to be possessed with the same 
foul demon of coercion that tore the 
mad soul of George Third, and disrupted 
the British empire a century ago), let me 
tell him, that before the American peo- 
ple become conscious and willing slaves 
tO»a mongrel Anglo- American aristoc- 
racy — before "stronger government" 
dominate here as it domiuates in Ire- 
land — this country will be reduced again 
to the wilderness it was two hundred 
years ago. Mounds only, and smoking 
ruins will mark where once our proud 
cities stood ; and the whole land, that 
we so much love, will be as desolate as 
the plains of Babylon. 

Americans are quick to think and 
prompt to act; and there is no power 
on earth can prevent them from righting 
their wrongs, " peacefully if they can, 
forcefully if they must." Hence I say to 
the authorities of my country, pause! 
as a patriot, with the blood of Revolu- 
tionary sires in my veins — as one whose 
heart beats with the same love of liberty 
that led Warren to lay down his life at 
Bunker Hill, and as a sincere advocate of 
peace and good will — standing on the 
watchtower of freedom, I. say to the en- 
throned powers of our government, 
halt!! Pinkerton's Hessians must be 
immediately disarmed and disbanded. 
The national guard must not be called 
out to shoot down unarmed workers, 
imen, women and children) any more. 
The police force of our cities must not 
be armed like soldiers, and marched in 
platoons into the midst of public meet- 
ings to break them up here as they are 
broken up by armed police in Ireland. The 
Anarchism we have great reason now to 
fear is that of monopoly armingnational 
guards, policemen, and detectives in thje 
name of "law and order," to break up 
public meetings and shoot down work- 
ing people. The freedom of assembly, 
the freedom of speech, of the pen and of 
the press must not be interfered with in 
the United States. The pen (another 
name for public sentiment), is mghtier 
than the sword, but it must be free- 
perfectly free. As friends of the new- 
freedom (I call it new, but it came ner- 
alded in the joyful hymn heard by the 



shepherds among the. Tudean hills, nearly 
nineteen hundred years ago), as Mend» 
of the new freedom we cannot afford to 
resort to violence and force for righting, 
our wrongs, while yet the stump, the print- 
ing press and the ballot, are within our 
reach. We may safely rely upon truth 
(another way of saying we may rely 
upon God, for God is truth), find upon 
the potent ballot to preserve to us our 
rights. Public opinion is omnipotent 
here. The voice of the people is the 
voice of God. This the enemy of popular 
liberty well knows. Hence the efforts of 
monopoly to control the press and to 
put down free speech. If a'l the great 
dailies, weeklies, and monthlies of our 
country can be made to voice the mo- 
nopolists' views, and free assembly, free 
speech, free pen and free press be des- 
troyed, the people may (it is thought), 
be hoodwinked and led unresistingly 
into permanent slavery. But it is im- 
possible to obscure for a great while the 
truth. The eclipse will soon pass away 
and a clear sky will again reveal the 
glorious sun. 

VIII. The Chicauo Detectives. 

What are they? They are a banditti, 
and they perpetrate with impunity 
greater crimes than were ever attempted 
by brigands. They plan and execute 
robberies, and then for the reward of- 
fered, cause the innocent to be convicted 
and executed. Hired to procure evidence 
for divorces, they seduce men and women 
into adultery, The detective associa- 
tions of Chicago are largely made up of 
blackmailers, blacklegs, burglars, assas- 
sins, murderers, thugs, pimps and har- 
lots; and they are a scourge to that city r 
more dreadful than the black t^^ith. 
No man's or womans's life, property or 
reputation has any protection or secu- 
rity where those unscrupulous mercen- 
aries hold sway.f 

It is believed that the swarms of de- 
tectives that curse that city were the 
source and fountainhead of the river of 
discord that overflowed at the Hay- 
market on the 4th of May, 1886. It is 
believed that a so called " detective" 
threw the fatal bomb, in order to break 
the McCormick strike. I dare say there 
are hundreds of assassins in Chicago call- 
ing themselves "detectives," capable Of 
committing such a crime. Let them 
bring to justice the one who did throw 
the deadly missle, and whom they al- 
lowed to escape, or let them forever- 
stand justly suspicioned, by a jealous 

tThe facts on which my estimate of the detec- 
tive system is based, were obtained by me from 
reliable sources, the testimony of a young man 
of my acquaintance who was employed among 
the detectives of the Lake City lor a long whihf, 
and who learned the workings of the nefarious 
system by actual observation on the ground; 
and irom the efforts of detectives to convict 
Wiicox and Cline of the murder of Mayor Stnbbes 
ol Polk City, lows. 



(47 ) 



public, of the crime themselves. If they 
were half as skillful, in their detective 
profession, as they advertise themselves 
to be, they would certainly have tracked 
up, arrested and produced the real crim- 
inal in court long ago, unless it is their 
wish to conceal him. And I believe it is. 
I do not believe there was any 'con- 
spiracy to take human life" in Chicago, 
Illinois, on the 4th of May, 188(3, except 
as concocted by detectives and their pay- 
masters, the monopolists, who were the 
aggressors. I believe that the butchery 
of the six workingmen by the armed 
Chicago police force, on the day before 
the Hay market tragedy, was the result 
of a premeditated conspiracy to take 
life — that it was a cowardly, cold-blooded 
massacre, worse than that of the 5th of 
March, 1770, in Boston, Massachusetts, 
known in the history of our country as the 
" Boston massacre," that had so much 
to do towards enkindling the flames of 
the Revolutionary war. Our fathers 
would not endure the shooting down of 
the people by the armed minions of 
tyranny ; nor will the American people 
now bear it. The interference of armed 
men with the freedom of assembly, is a 
most dangerous menace to poular lib- 
erty, that will not be tolerated a day 
longer. It is not the office of policemen, 
I shall ever insist, to marched armed, 
and in platoons, like soldiers, right into 
the midst of public meetings, where the 
people are quietly listening to addresses, 
to break them up here, as is done by 
policemen in Ireland, who break up* and 
disperse, by force of arms, the meetings 
of the National League. Under no pre- 
text must the freedom of speech or of 
assembly be interfered with here. The 
time-consecrated motto of American 
freemen, "Our liberties we prize and our 
rights we will maintain," will be their 
motto, I trust, as long as time endures. 

IX. The Straight Path of Civilization. 

Michael Davitt would never have been 
heard of as a preacher of violence in un- 
happy llreland, had it not beeu for the 
tyranny of British law. John Brown 
would have spent his days peacefully at 
the plow but for the tyranny of Amer- 
ican law. The Michael Davitts and John 
Browns of the world ("Anarchists," call 
them if you will), may be sent to prison 
and to the gallows in battallions and by 
army corps ; but tyranny will not live a 
day longer for their incarceration and 
barbarous execution. 

If the; southern statesmen (Davis, 
Tombs and the rest), had known in 
1860, what bitter experience afterwards 
taught them — that civilization advances 
irresistibly along a straight path— they 
would have said to the people of the 
south, " Chattel slavery is dead. Civ- 
ilization has killed it, let us bury it 
then, pecefuily and noiselessly." So, to- 



day, the real statesmen of our 
country, north and south, do now 
see and perceive that wage slavery 
is dead. Profiting by past experience 
they assuredly will not let history repeat 
itself in so short a time as twenty-five 
years; but the American people will quiet- 
ly and peacefully lower the wage system of 
industry into the grave out of sight, and 
peacefully will they introduce the co- 
operative system of production. 

But 1 believe the hanging of those four 
men at Chicago, innocent of any crime 
known to our laws, is, I repeat, part of 
a diabolical conspiracy of designing cap- 
italists to force the working classes into 
an attitute of revolt, so as to give a 
plausible pretext for "nationalizing the 
militia," and thus perfecting the machin- 
erv of a standing army, that is now, 
with so much care, building up, under 
the cloak of " militia," to carry out the 
infernal scheme of coercion and subjuga- 
tion of the toilers, and of fastening the 
chains of industrial slavery permanently 
upon their wrists and ankles— strikes to 
be declared "riots," and suppressed by 
force of arms; to advise a strike, "con- 
spiracy against society, "punishable with 
dea,th on tht gallows, or life-imprison- 
ment in penitentiary ; and universal suf- 
frage to be overthrown Under the plea of 
"military necessity." 

It is no difficult task now to employ a 
Chicago detective to plant a few bombs 
along a railroad track, in case of a 
strike, and then arrest and convict the 
leaders of the brotherhood of strikers 
for "conspiracy ;" because the trade of 
a detective is professional perjury. It is 
no more trouble to-day for a Gould or 
a Vanderbilt to convict an innocent 
workingman of the greatest crimes, than 
it was for Nero or Caligula to convict a 
victim whom they wished to destroy. It 
is all done now by "machinery." The 
metropolitan daily press, clergy, mayors, 
police officers, judges, legislators and 
governors of states, are merely "wheels" 
of the "capitalistic machine." ^"man- 
ufacture public sentiment," a dynamite 
scare is gotten up to order, the corpora- 
tions interested footing the bill. Some 
ignorant German, who ca«not speak 
English, is charged with " conspiring to 
kill" judges, governors, or the President 
of the United States— a bomb is hid in bis 
house or near his boarding place by one 
of Pinkerton's men — the trap is sprung; 
the poor Dutchman, who can only say, 
"nichtz-vorstay," is convicted of* "con- 
spiracy" by the testimony of a perjured 
detective, who "turns state's evidence," 
and he is sentenced to seventeen years in 
the penitentiary ;— then a raid is made, 
by the police of Chicago, upon the halls 
where "Anarchists" meet; their Sunday 
schools are proclaimed, and their assem- • 
blies are broken up. Thus the way is 
being macadamized to the utter destruc- 
tion of popular rights. 



(48) 



X. SCYLLA AND CHAKYBDIS. 

We want cool-headed statesmanship 
\o carry us safely past these dangerous 
rocks; to pilot us clear, on the one hand, 
of the capitalistic Anarchists, blinded by 
insatiable avarice, and mad with greed, 
ontrolling the machinery of government 
i.nd manipulating the national guard, 
police and detective force in arms, and 
with reckless rashness and Tory brutal- 
ity, shooting down working people, 
breaking up public assemblies, and des- 
troying the freedom of speech ; and, on 
the other hand, of the socialistic An- 
archists, retaliating by violence and 
bloodshed, the wrongs inflicted by mo- 
nopoly against labor. 

Oh, workingmen, leave violent methods 
"where they have ever been held, esteemed 
and persistently used against the weak 
and defenseless, since tyranny and greed 
first set foot upon the before peaceful 
and happy earth — leave Anarchism 
where it belongs, and has always be- 
longed, time out of mind, (for the com- 
mon people, as a class, do no wrong de- 
signedly, do no violence premeditatedly 
— make no war upon society) — leave An- 
archism in the possession of the enemy 
of popular rights, to be wielded by him 
in his impotent efforts to stay the tide 
of progress, as was shown by the mad 
action of the the Canadian Tories in 
their desperate attempts to take the 
life of the Irish patriot (who now— 
eharne to Old England — occupies a nar- 
row cell in a British bastile), the 
brave O'Brien, by mob violence and 
assassination— an exhibition by the pre- 
tended friends of "law and order," of 
the hypocrisy of their pretensions, and 
as shown more plainly still by the par- 
liament of England, voicing the will oi 
the Tory aristocracy, in its demoniacal 
oppression of Ireland. 

Monarchists and aristocrats the world 
over, mean only by "law" the war-club 
of oppression, and by "order" the ab- 
ject submission of the many to the yoke 
of bondage placed upon their necks by 
the few, through the instrumentality of 
so-called "laws," that is to say, coer- 
cion bills enforced by military power. 
But reason and the peaceful ballot are 
the only weapons American workingmen 
have any use for now, or will be likely to 
have ever, in political and social war- 
fare; for. well matured public sentiment 
will, in this enlightened christian age, 1 
insist, build up free institutions every- 
where without the shedding of one 
drop of blood by the people in aggres- 
sive strife. When the Divine Master 
said to Peter, "Put up thy sword into 
. the sheath." he uttered words of deepest 
wisdom— the profoundest philosophy. 

Whoever advises the workingmen to 
violence and bloodshed in defense of 
their rights, or to redress their wrongs, 
in this country, may be correctly named 



"detective," "#py,"f "informer" or 
" madman." Prudent and patriotic 
leadership is the great thing to be de 7 
sired, the desideratum in any contest 
for human liberty. The Powderlys, 
the Parnells and the Gladstones of our 
day, occupy positions of the highest im- 
portance to the welfare of men, for the 
present and for all future time, like that 
of Washington in 1776, and like that of 
Lincoln, at the helm of our ship of state 
in the great storm engendered by the 
demon, chattel slavery. They are the 
toci of hope for the emancipation of the 
world from the barbarism that has held 
her in thrall from the cave period till 
now, leading mankind out of coercion, 
robbery and war, into kindliness, char- 
ity and peace, out of the service of self 
into the sei^vice of humanity, from the 
worship of Mammon to the worship of 
God. 

If I were called to-day to write a pro- 
clamation to the working people of my 
country, I would clothe it in something 
like the following words : 

XI. To the Toilers op America. 

Patience: The overthrow of Jthe 
enemy of the people by the ballot is as- 
sured, if you be patient, Oh, ye long-suf- 
fering millions! Let nothing that the 
enemy may do drive you to violence. 
It is part of the programme of the wage 
slave power to bear down upon the 
toilers, until the oppression becomes un- 
bearable and the people rise in insurrec- 
tion, which will give a pretext to the 
idle classes for the establishment of a 
military dictatorship over the working 
masses, and the overthrow of popular 
liberty in America. It is believed by the 
capitalists that the period is about 
reached when insurrections must break 
out among the poor wage workers, 
locked out of employment, and the cry 
of "bread or blood" be raised by the 
starving many. Nothing else will give 
the enemy success. There must be vio- 
lent outbreaks or industrial slavery 
cannot be permanently fastened upon 
us.* While universal suffrage lasts, the 

tThe action of the British spv, LeCaron, in 
advising dynamite outrages in the Wabash 
railroad strike, is a case in point. 

*Of the London strike of 1889 we read: 

The temper of the companies may be inferred 
from the iollowing remarks of a member of one 
of the big firms quoted in the London Daily Nevus. 
Referring to the suspension of all business the 
man of wealth said: — 

"So it will, be so long ae we submit to be ruled 
bv thesf. fellows.'" 

" A' hat fellows are they?" 

4 Why. Bukns and the rest of them." 

•'And how would jou propose to pat things 
right ?" 

"I'd lock up about four of them, and the whole 
thing would collapse." 

'•Supposing you could do it, you would natur- 
ally provoke riot and disorder." 

••A good job, too. It would soon bring things 
to a crisis, and we shou.d fcuow how to deal 
with it." 

This manifest desire to provoke a riot with a 



( ±9 ) 



capitalists are powerless to do evil, if 
the working people unite and speak 
through the ballot box as one man for 
the rights and interests of the many. 
"Rather than permit this," the enemy 
will inaugurate, he says, "one of fiercest 
of civil wars," and as a "military neces- 
sity" he will put down universal suffrage. 
Before the republic can be overthrown 
by force of arms there must be a pretext 
to "nationalize the militia," that is, con- 
solidate the army of national guards- 
enlisted, organized and disciplined the 
same as United States regulars, so that 
the wage workers may be held at the 
muzzles of the muskets of mercenary 
Hessians, as prisoners of war, and a strike 
be made the dead-line in the Anderson- 
ville prison-pen of monopoly. Hence 
the serpent hiss we hear daily from the 
bought up newspaper fraternity about 
the "dangerous class." They roll the 
Haymarket tragedy under their forked 
tongues as a sweet morsel. They exult 
at it. The mercenary detectives in the 
pay of monopolists, I believe, purposely 
produced it.* The workingmen had 



nothing to do with it. A God-send it was 
to the enemies of American liberty. The 
corporation-controlled courts have taken 
advantage of it, as a pretext to break 
down the safeguards of common justice 
and usurp all the prerogatives of govern- 
ment. They have deceived nobody. The 
people understand them. 

Patience! Let committees of the 
friends of free government be appointed 
in every city to look after the families 
of laborers out of employment. Don't 
let starvation enter their doors to drive 
the workingmen to despair and impel 
them to deeds of violence; and soon, by 
the potent ballot, we will peacefully sup- 
press the rebellion of capital against 
labor. Let tne friends of democratic 
government be watchful to provide for 
the wants of the oppressed laborers, un- 
til wj s*»all have time to marshal our 
forces at the ballot box, and vote the 
monopolists out of power and place in 
this country forever. 

Producers, farmers and wage-workers 

—patriots of America — unite I 



The Coming Reform. 

OPTIMIST, PESSIMIST. 

" The Earth hath he given to the child- 
ren of men.' 1 — David. 

optimist. 
Good morning, neighbor Pessimist; why do you 

look so sour? 
Good news I bring yon : soon will end accursed 

kingly power; 
And wars no more will scourge the world; but 

best Equality 
Will wed tbe lovely angel Peace; and we shall 

live 10 see 
God's Kingdom set up in tbe earth; the prom- 
ised shiloh come, 
When Poverty shall disappear; the glad millen. 

nium 
Will rise upon us bright as noon before you are 

aware; 
Then cast aside your gloomy looks and trample 

on Despair! • 

PESSIMIST. 

The end of kings, kind Optimist, we never shall 

behold; 
Froud tyrants bind us now in chains -king Alco- 
hol, king Gold, 
The first is Satan loosed on earth to re'gia 

thousand years; 
The beast of the Apocalypse the second king 

appears. 
These war against the sons of men; resistless is 

their power; 
The authors of all wretchedness; the helpless 

they devour— 
"So promise yet of better things; the world 

grows worse eaca year; 



view to military interference was evident in the 
tactics of the Dock Companies from the begin- 
ning.— Irish World. 

* The detectives (professional perjurers) in 
the pay of the C. B, & Q. railroad officials are at 
work now (1888) to manufacture similar "out- 
rages" — "dynamite conspiracies 1 ' etc., of the 
striking engineers and brotherhood leaders. The 
"dynamite" craze will be worked by tbe capi- 
talists for allthereisin.it, with corrupt courts, 
euborned witnesses and packed juries to aid them. 



A night of gloom the future shows ; no erleams o" 
morn appear; 

But rather darkness visible— a blackness Unde- 
fined 

Obscures the hope of good to man— gross daric- 
ness clouds his mind. 

The people are a race of fools— a flock of owls 
and bats ; 

Their wisdom is a sham,— how blind, a herd of 
hungry rats ! 

The "piper pipes;" the multitude rush madly 
through the town, 

Till in the sea they sre engulfed; behold the 
vermin drown ! 

A glass of beer will buy their vote; the states- 
man, for a •' pass," 

Y> ill be to Gould or Vanderbilt a most devoted 
ass. 

A mess of pottage gains the beet; their birth- 
right they resign; 

Thus avarice drives the people mad, as devils 
drove the swine. 

We live to see the end of wars; see blest Equal- 
ity I 

Behold all Christendom in arms ! An aristocracy 

Has grown here in a score of years, and mush- 
room millionaires 

Now seize the reins of sovereignty. The patriot 
despairs! 

"lis plausible to look for good! No, " facts are 
stubborn thingp." 

Can hope wipe out the race of Knaves and -break 
dishonest 'Tings?'' 

God's Kingdom is a crazy dream— yet let him 
dream who will ! — 

Such dreams are sweet, good Optimist; but 
truth's a bitter pill ! 

OPTIMIST. 

Methinks your mother nourished you, dear Pes- 
simist, on gall; 

Your bump of hope indeed is weak: your bump 
of faith is small. 

From savagery mankind have risen; 'twas Pro- 
gress led them forth 

To triumph over matter and to conquer all the 
earth ; 

The mountains they have leveled down ; the hills 
they have brought low :— 

The law is: "They shall conquer atil', shall 
vanquish every foe.' 

The prophet saw the blesied day; saw blossom 
as the rose 

The insert of the human mind ; and we may well 
suppose 



(50) 



That ho who tames the element* and yokes them 

to his cars, 
Will tame his savage passions too, and put an end 

to wars, 
1 he puny tribe of millionaires awhile may buzz 

and sting; 
But, mark me, gloomy Pessimist, the people will 

be king ! 
The people are a mammoth strong, resistless 

when they move, 
And progress is continuous, as of the stars above ; 
Ho going back; but onward still— right onward 

in their course; 
Yoa on and on forever, and omnipotent their 

force. 
Most subtile are ideas, friend; though subtile 

they are strong! 
Their liat is: 'Close up the gates gainst rob- 
bery and wrong.'" 
King Alcohol must die the death; king Gold 

must bow the knee ; 
The hand that grasps the thunderbolt like Jove's, 

will yet be free! 
Man will be free! Equality will co:ae to bless 

the Earth, 
And Poverty bhall disappear, and Freedom have 

new birth. 

PESSIMIST. 

Did not great Rome succumb to gold? Corrup- 
tion rang her knell; 

Her toilers robbed by millionaires, she tottered 
and she fell! 

The Gracchi thought to stem the tide; their ef- 
forts were in vain; 

The tribunes of the people fell; her patriots 
were slain. 

The "rich man" struck the fatal blow; accurst 
Monopoly 

Destroyed the mighty Commonwealth and stran- 
gled Liberty. 

The "rich man 11 knows no law but greed, and 
governments are made 

An engine of oppression dire,— to tyranny an aid. 

He robs bylaw; the army fights to force the 
poor to yield 

To him the substance of their toil, the products 
oi the field- 

Thus Ireland now is overrun with Red Coat sol- 
diery, 

To force the slaves that till the lands, again to 
bow the knee. 

When force ^ hall fail will fraud come in, assas- 
sinations, guile: 

The rich will rule; the poor must esrve now, on, 
and a 1 the while; 

There is no hope for him who toils; relief will 
be denied ; 

Hie choice must lie 'twixt slavery aad death bf 
suicide. 

OPTIMIST. 

I cannot say to you, my friend, that yon are 

wbolly right; 
'Tie gloomy now I must admit; but day succeeds 

the night. 
The evils that cannot be borne will soon be 

thrown aside, 
And then will rise the better day the prophets 

have descried— 
That brighter day shall surely come when labor 

will combine 
And walk together brothers all, the mighty 

"ninety-nine" — 
The "one"— how feeble is his arm when stalwart 

Labor strikes; 
The flood pours forth submerging all since 

broken are the dykes; — 
The time's at hand when shall arise the flood of 

working men, 
And autocrats shall fly for life, and thrones will 

topple then: 



We hear the mntttringe oi the 6'o:m; the Social 

Democrat, 
The Nifiilist, Trade's Union, all have iasae 

their fiat. 
Upon th i higher plane of love the people take 

i heir stand ; 
The world is free ! King Gold is dead, and Labor- 
owns the land! 
A bloodless revolution hail! Green Irelaad now 

behold 
Assume her former dignity, her prowess ae of 

old! 
Her sons have shown their native worth; her 

daughters have outdone 
The heroines of history— unfading lame's won; 
The sword no longer will be sought to right the 

toilers' wrongs; 
For peaceful means more potent are in breaking 

Slavery's thongp. 

PESSIMIST. 

The toilers, they are brutal dolts— a pack of 

senseless curs! 
Tobacco is their daily bread ;Jtheir drink is swill. 

Yea. worse, 
Their brains are cooked with alcohol; their 

bloated stomachs burst- 
They belch and vomit lager beer— of God they 

are accurst! 
The people (I must speak the truth) deserve the 

blows they get; 
Omnipotent you say they are, the drunken, 

brainless set! 
Like sheep they lick the bloody hand that grasps 

the fatal knife ; 
They bleat for salt— give mutton chops to Dives 

and his wife! 
You boast of "progress" in the past; you augur 

progress still; 
If it be progress, friend, alas! that progress is 

down hill ! 
Our fathers stood like men indeed; of them we 

justly brag; 
They fought John Bui), what do we now? Salute 

the BritiBh fKg!* 
Such is the "progress" we have made; BO^h .. 

progress soon will bring 
A House of Lords and Monarchy— long live Jay 

Gould, our king! 
Tis money rules ! The people fall prostrate be- 
fore the throne : 
Their bread is gone, the hungry curs now gladly 

gnaw a bone ! 

OPTIMIST. 

The drunkards are a feeble folk; besotted ones 

are few; 
The multitude are sober, man! intemperance 

they eschew; 
Tobaceo will be thrown aside. The time is very 

near 
When woman, by her gentle voice, will end its 

vile career ; 
But beer, wine, ale and alcohol will first go by 

the board, 
Then opium and tobicco she will banish with 

a word. 
So take a happier view ot things, my very worthy 

friend ; 
Believe the time is near at hand when wrong 

shall surely end; 
And let us cherish gentle thoughts, and let it be 

our pi m 
To build up human happiness and free the rac e 

of man. 
Another day, good Pessimist, we may again re- 
new 
This verv friendly dialogue, though now we 

say adieu. 
May 8, 1882. 

*Vide: York Town celebration. 1883. 



( 51 ) 



ESSAY V.— MUNICIPAL REFORM. 

A BRIEF REPLY TO MR. KASSON. 



My Cabin Home, Sept. 15, 1883. 
Dear Mr. Kasscn : — 

I have carefully read your article in 
the North American Review of Septem- 
ber, 1883, entitled, "Municipal Reform." 

It seems to me that you take a wrong 
view of the matter. The evil is, that the 
people do not govern— but designing 
"bosses" hoodwink and mislead the 
masses, and prevent a fair expression 
of opinion by packing the primaries and 
"fixing things." 

The doctrine of our fathers, as laid 
down by Jefferson in the Declaration of 
Independence, is, I think, the only true 
ground of political faith to be occupied 
by one who would be in line with pro- 
gress. Reaction toward autocracy will 
never be maintained. It is my belief that 
you have departed from the faith of the 
fathers, and that the sentiments ex- 
pressed in that article of yours will 
never be engrafted in our laws without 
a bloody struggle. I would die a thous- 
and deaths before 1 would yield my assent 
to such principles. 

Very Respectfully Yours, 

Leonard Brown. 

I do not believe with Mr. Kasson, that 
the "ruinous principle to be expelled 
from the business management of our 
cities^full of floating voters, is the rule 
which gives to a mere majority of irres- 
ponsible numbers the right of control, 
over the municipality;" I do not believe 
that the majority that so controls is a 
"corrupt mob;" I do noo believe that 
" the people who do not pay are always 
ready to create debt against the people 
who must pay ;"* I do not believe it to be 
" a sound principle, which would justify 
a limitation of municipal suffrage to 
property owners and to the payers of 
taxes ;" that is to say, I do not believe 
that as soon as the few have succeeded 
in robbing the many of all property, the 
many should cease to have a voice in 
the government of cities— that because a 
majority of the voters of the city of 
Boston, for instance, aienon- tax payers, 
therefore a majority of the voters of 
Boston ought to be disfranchised ; and 
I do not believe that " the control of the 
mere majority of irresponsible numbers" 
is the "breeding nest of municipal pec- 
ulation, corruption, waste and extrav- 
agance — the dark cavern of vicious poli- 
tics, the lying-in asylum of illegitimate 
politicians, the nursery of corrupt prac- 
tices." 

The following " Associated Press Dis- 
patch" that I chance at this moment to 

♦No men living are more worthy to be trusted 
than those who toil up from poverty— none lees 
inclined to take or touch aught which they have 
not honestly earned.— Abraha* Lincou*. 



see in a morning paper, explains the 
cau^e of corruption of city governments- 
acid shows also the remedy for it. 

Nashville, Oct, 12, 1883. 
"The annual municipal election to-day 
resulted in an overwhelming victory for 
the citizen's reform ticket over the can- 
didates for re-election of the old muni- 
cipal regime. The reform ticket is com- 
posed of blacks and whites for the first 
time in the history of the city. Tax- 
payers are jubilant over the defeat of 
'boss' rule of the corrupt ward sys- 
tem." 

"Boss" rule is what robs the city 
treasuries; not the rule of the poor 
laborers, mechanics and school-masters 
—poor whites or poor blacks who live 
D3 7 daily toil, not the rule of the people 
who do not pay taxes ; for these are 
cheated out of a voice under "boss" rule 
of the "corrupt ward system." Vile 
" rings" of corrupt politicians "fixing" 
primaries govern these " boss"-robbed 
cities. This is clearly shown in George 
Walton Greene's " Facts About Caucus 
and Primary" in the same number of 
the North American Review, in which 
Mr. Kasson's "Municipal Reform" arti- 
cle appears. But the specific remedy is 
finally applied at Nashville. An appeal 
is taken to the poor " colored men" for 
help, and for the first time, in the history 
of that city, are these poor people 
treated with justice and magnanimity, 
and their manhood recognized. "The 
tax-payers are jubilant over the result" 
of universal manhood suffrage and fair 
play for the poor despised colored men, 

Manifestly, the only true remedy for 
the evils that afflict all governments — 
City, State and National, is to extend 
the" elective franchise to all adult citizens, 
male and female, native-born and natu- 
ralized, white and black, rich and poor, 
and thus make the public interests the 
business of all men and all women, and 
the chief study of the people in the home 
circle, support an independent press de- 
voted to the interests of the many and 
not bound with adamantine chains to 
the chariot wheels of monopoly and job- 
bery and corrupt "rings." There is no 
" corrupt mob" to out- vote the masses,, 
male and female. Let these be not de- 
ceived and hoodwinked and misled by 
designing demagogues, and the adminis- 
tration of the affairs of City, State and 
Nation will be pure and satisfactory. 

Mr. Kasson admits that in the most 
remarkable case in our annals this pil- 
lage of public funds was only revealed by 
an "independent press, and punished by 
the slow but £rm uprising of an indig- 
nant community ■."' This is a wonderful 
admission, pointing out, it appears to 



( 52 ) 



me, the only possible cure for the disor- 
ders Mr. Kasson complains of deflecting 

cities, and directing with index finger to 
-correct '-Municipal Reform" I^^'an in- 
dependent PRESS"— "FIRM L'PIUSING OF 
an indignant community." The "com- 
munity" need not go so far as to "usurp 
the duties of the regular officers of the 
law," as it did in the case he mentions ; 
for the "community" is the only rightful 
appointer of "officers of the law." Let 
the "community" control and all is safe. 
Thieving politicians that usurp control 
through "boss" and "machine" manage- 
ment and who are not elected by a fair 
expression of the voice of the "commu- 
nity," must be put down. Let the peo- 
ple govern and all is well. But politi- 
cians elected to office by "tax-payers" 
alone, would not necessarily be more 
"honest" than if elected by the "irre- 
sponsible majority." It does not make 
an official "honest" because elected to 
place by rich men, nor dishonest be- 
cause elected by poor men, and party 
knaves may deceive the rich "few" as 
easily as they do the poor "many"-— 
"daily personal association lulling sus- 
picion" as well in the one case as in the 
other. Is it true, what Victor Hugo 
says? "Imagine everybody governing! 
Can you fancy a city directed by the 
men who built it? They are the team, 
not the coachmen. What a god-send is 
a rich man who takes charge of every- 
thing! Surely he is generous to take 
this trouble for us!" Perhaps there is 
a little spark of irony in this, for Victor 
Hugo is* a democrat. "It is," he says, 
'the people who are on-coming. I tell 
,you it is man who ascends. Ah, this 
society is false. One clay, and soon, the 
true society will come. Then there will 
be no more lords ; there will bu free, liv- 
ing men. There will be no more wealth, 
there will be abundance for the poor. 
There will be no more masters, but there 
will be brothers. They that toil shall 
fhave. This is the future. No more 
prostration, no more abasement, no 
more ignorance, uo more wealth, no 
more beasl s of burden, no more courtiers, 
no more kings— but light!" 

Would not Mr. Kasson's logic end in 
making city governments and all other 
governments autocratic— upheld by and 
upholding a hateful plutocracy, as two 
boards. on end leaning together, uphold 
each other— and would it not bring back 
"divine right of kings?" W T ould there 
not be a Dictator at Washington, sup- 
ported by and supporting the plutocrats 
of New York and Boston— agents of 
London "financiers," the Barings and 
Rothchilds— this Dictator appointing 



"con nrssioners" to govern cities and 
States, as Washington City and Utah 
Territory are tyrannized over to-day.— 
"model governments," according to Mr. 
Kasson's reasoning, Washington City 
being governed by aboard of three "com- 
missioners," appointed by the President 
— ("Dictator")— and Utah Territory by 
a board of five "commissioners," ap- 
pointed by the President— ("Dictator")! 
These issue "rules"— or, in other words, 
make laws for City and for Territory. 
This "commission" system is a damna- 
ble tyranny, and history will so de- 
fine it. And this sort of government is 
preparing for all American States and 
Cities, and Mr. Kasson's paper, entitled 
"Municipal Reform" is, it seems to me, 
a finger-board pointing the way to its 
speedy inauguration. "Bosses" (corrupt 
politicians, who have been fed at the 
public crib for a quarter of a century, 
and petted by the people until they have 
come to despise their masters), are evi- 
dently plotting and planning the over- 
throw of democratic freedom on this 
continent. It is time the patriots 
(toilers) of our country awakened from 
their slumber of false security. 

Mr. Kasscn certainly fails to make 
clear a distinction between city and 
State government. The State does not 
"give" the people of a city the right of 
self-government. "All power is inherent 
in the people." The city is a "State," 
and the earliest to adopt democratic 
governments — Athens and Rome, for in- 
stance. The functions of the city legis- 
lature are as important to the welfare 
of the people of a city, rich and poor, 
as are the functions of a state legis- 
lature important to the welfare of the 
people of a State, rich and poor. 
The State, I repeat, does not "give" the 
city the right of self-government any 
more than the Federal Government 
"gives" each State, admitted into the 
Union, the right of self-government. 
This right is God-given — a "Divine right." 
Democratic government is peculiarly 
well fitted to the wants of cities, and 
ever pre-eminently satisfactory— calling 
out and developing the highest order of 
manhood. Democracies alone produce 
great men. Let our cities become more 
and more democratic; for the "irre- 
sponsible majority of numbers," that 
Mr, Kasson sneers at, will always do 
the right when they know the right. 
When they do wrong it is when they are 
misled. The poor non-tax-paying voters 
are not robbers. Poor men are ever the 
most ready to give their lives an offering 
to save their country's flag and liberty. 



(53 



ESSAY VI'.— THE PATH OF PEACE. 



I. 1 he New Republic. 

According to the generally recognized 
law of evolution, what is to be must 
proceed from what now is. And history 
teaches that sudden and radical changes 
in government are seldomly made by the 
popular vote in time of peace. The 
American Republic, born of revolution, 
was patterned after the commonwealth 
of Oliver Cromwell in many essential 
reepf cts. Our common law is the same 
as England's. The kinship of the two 
governments is plainly discernable. The 
Tree of Liberty that our fathers planted 
(arrived at mature growth and full fruit- 
age),^ the "New Republic" that is to be. 

That there'may be no misunderstand- 
ing of my meaning by the reader, the 
following theses, embodying briefly a 
statement of the principal social reforms 
advocated by my pen, are here presented. 

1. Most ample provision should be 
made by the several states and by the 
general government for the kindly and 
bountiful care and education, under the 
most devoted, philanthropic and com- 
petent teachers, nurses and matrons, of 
all orphan, helpless and destitute child- 
ren and youth, to the end that it may 
be good for children to be born. 

2. Most ample provision should be 
made'by the several states and thegeneral 
government for the kindly care of all 
helpless people, to the end that no one 
may be obliged to beg his bread. 

3. All pains, penalties, punishments 
and toitures of criminals should be abol- 
ished, and the several states and the 
general government should establish re- 
formatory institutions, comprising fac- 
tories, workshops and schools, giving 
them healthful employment and. remu- 
nerative wages, uniform with the wages 
of workingmen generally, and kindly di- 
rection in the path of righteousness, to 
the end that all moral disease may be 
thus cured and complete moral and 
mental healthfulness secured. 

4. Equality should be brought about 
by the abrogation of all monopolies, in- 
cluding monopoly of the lands, of the 
medium of exchange and of the tools of 
production ; and instead of competition, 
which is another name for war, institut- 
ing what alone will bring universal peace, 
harmony and christian love— a benefi- 
cent system that miy be appropriately 
and correctly styled, 

II Universal Co-op eratiox. 

To secure this most important result 
(it being the foundation on which the 
new social structure must rest, its cor- 
ner-stone freedom and not slavery), 
land limitation laws should be lmme- 
di.iie'y passed, and the individual own- 



ership of land confined to actual occu- 
pants of the soil. Our circulating me- 
dium (money) should be only legal- 
tender government scrip and (until 
completely outgrown in the popular 
thought), specie freely and unlimitedly 
coined by the government for the owners 
of bullion, according to their wishes, 
they paying the expense of its coinage, 
yet not made legal tender, but left free to 
circulate on "intrinsic value" alone, 
which would exactly accord with ther 
teachings of the hard money advocates, 
who say that "intrinsic value gives to 
specie its money quality— gold and silver 
being money by virtue of the metal, and 
not (they say), by virtue of law ;" while 
on the other hand, it is claimed (cow 
rectly too, I think,) by the advocates of 
an exclusively paper money, that "law 
alone monetizes, and law alone demone- 
tizes,— that money is wholly a creature 
of law, and that no substance is money 
per se, gold and silver being no more- 
money, according to their nature, than? 
is paper. Money quality is conventional 
entirely." 

Popular control of the finance and the 
abolition of iuterest is demanded for the 
benetit of production, the cost of ex- 
change to be reduced to zero ; the only 
end for which money should exist, being 
to facilitate production and the equita- 
ble distribution of products. Let all 
banks of deposit become governmental 
savings banks, that no loss may result 
to depositors. Let legal tender paper 
money be invested by government in 
lands, mines, manufactories, ships, rail- 
roads, telegraphs, telephones, irrigating 
canals, etc., etc., to the end that private 
capital shall no longer emploj labor- 
lands free, money free, tools free — all in- 
dustry co-operative — a truly democratic 
government itself being only a huge co- 
operative association, in which all the 
individuals of the commonwealth (men 
and women), have equal rights, fran- 
chises, privileges, advantages and inter- 
ests — "life, liberty and the pursuit of 
happiness," being guaranteed protection 
alike to each and all, by the common 
compact enforced by the popular will, 
crystalized into law. 

To this condition must all human 
society ultimately come. The universal 
thought of humanity is most rapidly 
culminating in this opinion— fraternal 
organization is being fast perfected the 
world over, and all men, except those 
blinded by avarice, see the day near at 
hand when old things shall have passed 
completely away and all things shall 
have become new — not only old utensils,, 
old machinery and old means of loco- 
motion, transportation, distribution 
of products, diffusion of intelligence, etc., 



(54 ) 



Tout old forms of government also. 
Society is about to be reorganized upon 
the granite foundation of equality 
voiced in the Declaration of American 
Independence, and primarily taught by 
Jesus Christ, and first instituted (soon 
after his crucifixon) by his apostles 
and the other disciples at Jerusalem, 
with James his brother the first presi- 
dent of the model commonwealth. "All 
that believed were together and had all 
things common, and sold their posses- 
sions and goods ami parted them to all 
men as every man had need." (Acts ii, 
44-45). 

Whoever is shocked at this idea of hu- 
man equality, let him burn his New 
Testament at once and pronounce him- 
self an infidel- for he surely lacks fidelity 
to the fundamental idea of Christianity, 
expressed in the command, "Love thy 
neighbor as thyself" — a religion mani- 
festly designed, by its divine founder, to 
make mankind socially one family of 
loving brothers and sisters. 

III. The New Anti-Slavery Cause. 

Monopoly, the basis of wage slavery, 
must be put down, to the end that pri- 
vate capital, I repeat, shall no longer 
employ labor, and all industry shall be- 
come co-operative, the toilers selling in 
the markets of the world the products 
of his own lab jr, but not his labor, 
labor ceasing to be a marketa ble com- 
modity, the system of slavery being 
broken down in which labor is sold to 
the highest bidder, as the laborer himself 
was formerly sold. The wage slave mas- 
ter grows rich by the same process the 
chattel slave master did, allowing his 
slaves (be it remembered always to the 
utter condemnation of the system), not 
so much as the chattel slave master) by 
the nature of that system of bondage 
acid the dictates of humanity, that 
could not be ignored, was compelled to 
allow his slaves ; for the chattel slave 
master carefd for them in sickness and 
old age ; but the wage slave master, to- 
day, in this so-called "Christian" land, is 
exempt from this obligation, allowing 
his poor slaves, out of the proceeds of 
their own labor, merely a meager sub- 
sistence while at work, with the right to 
lock them out and shut down the mill 
for weeks and months at a time, to "les- 
sen production and advance the price of 
products;" the workers, in the mean- 
time, cut off from the opportunity to 
earn bread, are compelled to starve or 
beg, many of them becoming tramps. 
The balance of the products of the 
laborer's toil remaining in the possession 
of the master, enriches him He luxuri- 
ates at Long Branch "during the hot 
season," or sips champagne in the cafes 
of Paris, while his poor slaves swelter 
at tl eir toil and go hungry to bed, the 
employer setting the price of the mar- 
ie table commodity, labor. 



The only veto the wage slaves, may 
attempt against this cruel tyranny is 
the strike. If this be not met bv a 
"lock out," it will be proclaimed a 
" riot," and the bayonet will settle the 
dispute in favor of the wage slave master, 
of course. 

Wage slaves, I concede, are not liter- 
ally hunted down with bloodhounds, as 
the chattel slaves were; but they are 
imprisoned as ''conspirators" for ad- 
vising a strike. A starving family takes 
the place of a whipping post. Imprison- 
ment in penitentiary for the crime of 
being a "tramp" (Connecticut law), 
saves the wage slave driver the costs and 
trouble that "abolitionists" used to 
bring on the chattel slave driver by their 
"fanatical" opposition to the fugitive 
slave law. A willingness to "work for 
what you can get" is thus "brought 
home" to the minds of the wage slaves, 
and starvation and coercion bring 
peace and submission. 

The cruelties of wage slavery are the 
hidden, studied, cold-blooded, diabolical 
cruelties of refined - barbarity,— the in- 
flictor washing his blood-bespattered 
hands and asking, "Am [ my brother's 
keeper?"— a h mdred-fold more severe 
than are the lashings and the other open 
horrors of chattel slavery. 

How long will the eyes of philanthro- 
pists be blind to these evils?— <*nd to 
the sufferings of those countless mi lions, 
deprived even of salt by the heartless 
cupidity of the British tyrant! Wage 
slaves are frequently compelled to work 
in silence like convicts, not being allowed 
by their masters to converse with each 
other while at their tasks. " No admit- 
tance" placarded on the entrance door 
of the factory warns the visitor to "keep 
out." Indeed the words that Dante 
found written on the portal of Hell are 
also written "in colors dim" on the 
doors of the great slave hives of New 
England : 
"All hop© abandon ye who enter here," 

The burdens under which the damned 
are doomed to groan, according to the 
same divine poet, are not unlike tliose 
borne by wage slaves : 

"Eaeh as his back was laden came indeed 
Or more or less contracted, and it seemed 
As he who showed most patience in his look 
Wailing, exlaimed: I can endure no more." 
Pcroatort, Book X. 

IV. Freedom Inalienable. 

I have only the right to sell the prod- 
ucts of my labor, if to sell my labor E 
sell my freedom ; for no man has a right 
to part with his liberty. No one has a 
right to say to another, "Go here," or 
"Go there," and no one can lawfully 
acquire the right of command over an- 
other. 

It is not, however, the isolated fact 
that labor itself is sold, that renders the 
wage system slavery, but it is the other 



( 55 ) 



fact ever accompanying it, that the 
laborer necessarily enters a chain gang 
■as the result of that sale, the employer 
""exercising authority upon him," be- 
coming his " boss." 

I know the lawyers say that in the so- 
icial compact, called "government," 
man must of necessity surrender a cer- 
tain portion of his God-given freedom. 
I deny it. In a properly organized dem- 
ocratic state (like that in the mind of 
-Jetierson when lie penned the Declara- 
tion of Independence), man will lose 
none of his natural freedom. From the 
cradle to the grave there will be no 
change in the ever musical onflow of the 
river of hie. As the child is uncontrolled 
dn its play, so will man be uncontrolled 
-at his work. 

Will some philosopher rise and explain 
why the freedom and activity of child- 
hood should be lost in manhood; why 
the interest and happiness the child ex- 
hibits in its play may not be shown by 
all men and all women at their work? — 
work being only a continuance of child 
play, if false education and false systems 
of labor did not step in to interfere with 
gentle nature that leads the child. The 
child is perfectly free. That freedom be- 
gets activity. The soul born to freedom 
dances delighted (.its normal state is 
.happiness}, as the glassy water leaps 
laughingly down the pebbly pathway of a 
meadow brook that stagnates when 
damned up, and green scum covers its 
once sparkling surface — the sunshine no 
longer penetrating and lighting up the 
palace of beauty— the home of the free 
-and happy— the halls where revel the 
iinny inhabitants, that know no res- 
traint but nature's law. Let all man- 
made laws be repealed that contravene 
the God-made statute; then will all men 
and all women, becoming (or continu- 
ing), as little chiidreu "enter the 
dom of God." 

W. Civil Service Under Wage In 

Everyone has a God-given right to an 
opportunity t> earn a i/ing by hon- 
est labor. When that opportunitv has 
been embraced it should not be taken 
away without cause. The laws, even 
undefe the wage system, should enforce 
"civil service" in all blanches of labor 
— should compel the manufacturer to 
run his establishment, uot for his own 
private profit alone, but for the good of 
-all parties concerned. For shutting 
down his factory, withoutgood and suffi- 
cient reason, he should be held answer- 
able to the law — should be compelled to 
make good all damage to the workers 
thrown out of employment by his selfish, 
wicked act. 

And right here lie vital inquiries— the 
heart and soul of the wage controversy, 
vie. 

First. Do the rights of " life, liberty 
.and pursuit of happiness—" the "in- 




alienable rights," for which the war of the 
American Revolution was waged and 
victory won, — give to the laborers any 
further title in the workshop, farm, rail- 
road or mine, that affords them employ- 
ment from which their, subsistence is de- 
rived, — than barely their daily, weekly 
or monthly wages? 

Answer. They certainly do. 

The workers, by whose labor and skill 
the workshop, factory, farm, railroad or. 
mine are operated, have a natural right 
of possession, equal with the employer 
himself, because, without this the "in- 
alienable rights" of "life, liberty and the 
pursuit of happiness," cannot be main- 
tained. That "higher law" may be 
stated in the following words: 

1. Existing relations shall not be sun- 
dered without cause, and 

2. Every important controversy shall 
he decided by a competent court, that is 
to say, by arbitrators. 

A right similar to that accruing to 
parties in marriage — and for the same 
reason — the common welfare — the final 
balance by which all social relations are 
weighed and brought to equipoise. 

Second. How can an equitable legal 
eviction of either party be reached 
through the decision of a court of arbi- 
tration or of appeal ? 

Answer. If ( 1 ) the employer will not 
acquiesce in the decision of the court of 
arbitration, or of that of a final court of 
appeal, let appraisers determine the 
value of the employer's interest, and let 
the workers be permitted to organize as 
a co-operative firm, and go forward with 
the business, paying a fair per cent of 
t leir profits as rent. 

If (2) the workers refuse to acquiesce 
in the decision of the court of arbitra- 
tion, or of final appeal, let bids be ad- 
vertised by the court for other compe- 
tent workers to take the places declared 
vacant, on the same conditions as the 
court had decided to be just, and if 
others respond and are ready to go to 
work on those terms, let them be in- 
stalled in the places of the first by the 
officers of the law, But if none appear, 
let the workshop, factory, plantation, 
railroad or mine remain unused and idle 
until the mutual interests of employers 
and employed set the wheels of the in- 
dustry in motion again; for we have, I 
trust, come about to the end of both 
chattel and wage slavery. 

If (3) it be conceded that the industry 
would return a living reward to both 
employers and employed, and by com- 
bination and agreement among them- 
selves, workers will not take the places 
declared by the judges vacant, there can 
be, clearly, no remedy, but the aband- 
onment of the effete wage system and 
the inauguration, through governmental 
assistance, of co-operative industry. 
Let the dead bury its dead. We have 
manifestly coTie upon a time when wage 
industry is about to die, as chattel 






( ««) 




slavery died twenty-five years ago (but 
peacefully, I trust) and a better system 
take its place. This pre-ordained time 
having arrived on the dial-plate of civ- 
ilization, it is as futile for capitalists to 
attempt, through the instrumentality 
of armed guards, armed and mercenary 
detectives, and armed policemen, to pro- 
long the existence of the dead system as 
the bloody endeavor of the southern 
planters, to keep alive chattel slavery, 
was futile. The avarice of the few ought 
not be permitted again to bring upon 
the American nation civil war. The 
change from wage slavery to co-opera- 
tive industry is inevitable, and can no 
more be prevented or delayed, than can 
the annual revolution of the earth 
around the sun be prevented or delayed 
by the puny efforts of men ; because pro- 
gressive ideas move irresistably forward 
in a right line to their pre-ordained goal. 
The so-called "legal" evictions of the 
poor renters in Ireland, are not as 
tyrannical as are the illegal evictions of 
the poor wage -workers of America, who 
have been compelled by the cupidity of 
heartless employers to quit work tem- 
porarily (strike) , for the purpose of ob- 
taining justice. Instead of the authori- 
ties of our country reaching out a help- 
ing hand to the oppressed workers, as 
they ought to do, thay arm policemen, 
guards and detectives, and instruct them 
to shoot down innocent and suffering 
men, women, and little children, in order 
to aid the meanest tyrants that ever 
cursed the world, to literally starve into 
submission and abject slavery the poor 
wage-workers who have dared to offer a 
protest against outrageous oppression — 
and this the officials do without any au- 
thority of court— without any form 
whatever of legal order; but it is don« 
by the arbitrary ukase of (it may be), 
drunken chiefs of police, the pampered 
dogs of the corporations. If the State 
authorities do not hasten to enact laws 
compelling employers and employed to 
go at once before a magistrate, as soon 
as a misunderstanding arises between 
them, and compelling the shutting down 
of the business until the quarrel has 
been adjusted before a competent and 
impartial court— then are the authori- 
ties of the State blind and deaf and dumb 
to the interests and rights of the people. 

VI. Laeoi Superior to Capital. 

The Declaration of Independence of 
1776 settles forever, that theinalienable 
rights of man are superior to the so- 
called rights of property. In accordance 
with, and to enfo>ce the law of, the De- 
claration of Independence, strikes arise. 
In accordance with, and to enforce the 
British doctine that our fathers opposed 
in an eight-years' war, and suppressed 
through the establishment of the prin- 
ciples of the Declaration <»f Independence 
i 1 the capture of Yorktown, by their 



own invincible bravery and the aid of 
French arms — which we should ever re- 
member with gratitude — the city au- 
thorities of our country, mayors and 
police— and the State authorities — 
governors, sheriffs and "State regulars." 
assisted by Pinkerton's armed Hessians, 
—always take the side of the propertv 
owners whenever a strike occurs— assum- 
ing that the rights of property are 
superior and paramount to all other 
rights, when in truth the rights of pro- 
perty may be defined.&s nothing, and the 
rights of man everything, when one is 
weighed in the balance against the other 
— and those authorities proceed at once, 
without warrant of court — yea, and 
without any warrant whatever, but 
their own arbitrary willfi, to evict the 
workers — shooting them down.* It is here 
in America no different from the pro- 
ceedings of the British authorities in 
Ireland— except that the officials of our 
country are more arbitrary than are the 
British officials in oppressed Erin, since 
they never go forward there to the work 
of eviction, except in obedience to the 
mandate of a court, however tyrannical; 
here, governors, sheriffs, mayors and 
chiefs of police are only corporation 
tools, when they move against "strikers "' 
to evict them— not being executors of 
the decrees of courts, but only carrying 
out the arbitrary decrees of corporation 
Czars. 

The British authorities in Ireland, it 
is true, recognize no rights what ever » 
except the rights (so-called) of property 
owners (landlords), though the tenants 
have had for centuries (they and their 
fathers before them) possession of the 
holdings they now occupy, and of the 
houses built by their and their fathers' 
money and labor. By force of arms the 
people are turned out of doors upon the 
roadside — driven from their ancestrai 
homes by non-resident, alien tyrants. 
The rights of man are wholly ignored in 
Great Britain, and the "rights of prop- 
erty" are worshiped as a fetich. So here 
the same doctrine is enforced, in the in- 
terest of corporation kings, without 
warrant of law and contrary to the 
principles of American liberty. Workers 
are evicted by force of arms from their 
holdings, for they do not surrender their 



*THE SITUATION AT BROOKLYN. 

Beooklyn, Jan. 31.— A car on the Greenwood 
and Mitli Averse route, one oi the Richardson 
liie, went over the entire route at 3:30 this 
T"< rning escort d by thirtv-six mounted police- 
men. Crowds of people lined the streets but 
tlie e was no disturbance 

With >ut doubt tne most remarkable and strik- 
ing feature of to-da\ 'e developments was the 
commacdof Inspector wiiliameto hie men this 
morning when the detail was being made lor th« 
day. lie eaid, and his words had marked effect 
on those who heard them. "If tne crowd use 
clubs, you use vour pistol;?. Have no nonsense 
about it. 1 want no play— no foolishness. If 
m'cessa-v. uso your pistols, and use them well, 
bhootto kit,."— Fress Dispatch, 



( S7 ) 



places— and the authorities know this— 
by the act 6! ''striking" against the 
tyranny of corporate gree.i. They only 
temporarily halt— as soldiers do on a 
march— momentarily cease to carry 
forward a certain line of business, in 
order to appeal to the public for justice 
against tyranny. And the strikers are 
always willing and anxious to abide by 
the decisions of any competent and im 
partial tribunal the people may ordain, 
to decide between them and their oppres- 
sors. But the law — because of the inter- 
ference of corporation tyrants, with 
legislation, and their influence with legis- 
lators and governors— because they have 
been (only temporarily, I trust) en- 
thorned as the dictators of our laws, 
and are able to forbid in advance, or to 
veto by corruptly controlling the courts 
after its enactment, any legislation in 
the interest of labor in workshop or on 
farm— the law, I say, has failed as yet 
to create a peaceful tribunal to settlo 
these differences. But the authorities 
falsely, wickedly and tyrannically assume 
that the places are vacated de facto and 
de jure, when they were not meant to be, 
and have not been, vacated at all, which 
the authorities well know, and they pro- 
ceed to drive the workingmen away from 
their holdings by means of police batons, 
revolvers, repeating rifles and Gatline- 
guns. The people must put a stop to 
this detestable interference without war- 
rant of law, of governors, sheriffs, 
mayors, police and Pinkerton's armed 
mercenaries, in the war of property 
against man, or man will again be com- 
pelled to enforce the recognition of his 
inalienable rights, as our fathers were 
compelled to do in 1776. 

80 the question must now be finally 
and forever answered and put to rest, 
viz: Are the rights of property superior 
to the natural rights of man? That is 
the question our fathers gave an une- 
quivocal negative answer to in the Rev- 
olutionary conflict of eight years against 
the armed battalions of Great Britain 
and of Hessian mercenaries — and that is 
the question the " boys in blue" gave an 
unequivocal negative answer to in the 
four years conflict against the armed 
upholders of chattel slavery. Will it be 
again necessary for the wage workers 
and farmers of America to shoulder 
their muskets in a bloody struggle 
against organized monopoly, to answer 
for the third and last time this question 
in the negative? I trust not. The shoot- 
ing down of the people by organized 
bands Of policemen, detectives, and 
guards, by the order of police chiefs, 
rvayors, sheii'fs and governors must 
stop at once and forever; and when a 
strike occurs, the law mu-t compel the 
parties in the dispute to appear imme- 
diately before a court — an impartial 
tribunal — to have the quarrel settled in 
a peaceful way, and governors, sheriff-, 
mayors, policemen, " State regulars." 



and armed mercenary bands of detec- 
tives, must not proceed arbitiarily and 
wickedly, as they now are in the habit 
of doing, to settle the dispute by force 
of arms, or soon force will be called, as 
in 177(3, to meet force, in order to an- 
swer finally "nay," the question — are 
the so-called rights of property superior 
to the inalienable rights of man? 

The wish, purpose, aim and intention 
of the authorities to help the employers 
defeat the employed, can be no better 
shown than was shown in Chicago at the- 
time of the car-drivers' strike in 1888-. 
The chief of police, or the mayor, (one 
or the other, I do not now remember 
which), issued an order forbidding hacks- 
and carriages from running on certain 
stieets to carry passengers, because of 
the "danger of riots," and for the sake 
of "better preserving the peace." Now. 
if the chief of police, or the mayor of the 
city, had the right (and no one will deny 
that he had,) to stop hacks and car- 
riages from running in order to "preserve 
the peace," why did he not stop the pro- 
prietors of the street cars from attempt- 
ing to run their earn before they had set- 
tled the quariel with their employees? 
Here was t~e real source of danger and 
conflict. Any man that has any sense 
at ail, can see plainly that it was the 
duty of the city authorities to forbid the 
running of the street cars until the quar- 
rel had Leen settled between the em- 
ployers and the employed, unless the 
authorities chose to take the side of the 
employers against the strikers. And it is 
win. t they did. And it is what they have no- 
legal or moral right to do ; but they do 
it always and in defiance of right, justice- 
ami morality, and in violation of the 
peace. Jt is a declaration of war — (it is 
war itself) — by the authorities against 
the people, the same as when Charles I. 
of England set up his standard at Not- 
tingham, August 22, 1642, and as when 
the British 'regulars landed in Boston, 
October 1, 1768, and if persisted in will 
inevitably end, as did those rash acrfi 
arbitrary acts of British t;> rants, ilk. 
bloodshed and revolution. Before a, 
Court has spoken, before the dispute has 
beeu settled by the decision of a compe- 
tent board of arbitration, the author- 
ities have no right to give aid to the car., 
mill or factory owners against the strik- 
ers. But, on the contrary, it is the duty 
of the authorities in the interest of 
peace and jnstice to forbid the cars, mills* 
iVctories, etc., to run before the quarrel 
has been settled by the decision of a 
court of arbitration; because, in the- 
words of Abraham Lincoln, " Labor is- 
the superior of Capital, and deserves 
much the higher consideration" 

If asked to d -fine in brief the essential 
diference between American and English- 
law, I would say, that in the contem-- 
plation of American law, labor ir : 
the superior of capital; in that of 
English law capital is the superior 0%' 



( 58 ) 



:a'x)r. I insist that the supremacy of 
tne inalienable lights of man above the 
rights (so-called) of property, is the 
fundamental idea of the Declaration of 
Independence of 1776, and the founda- 
tion principle of American law. Any 
legislation, and any action of officials of 
government not in accord with this prin- 
ciple is tyra.iny. Tried by this rule, 
many of the laws enacted by the Con- 
gress of the United states and by the 
legislatures of the several States of the 
Union, during the past twenty years, are 
tyrannical, viz: the national laws es- 
tablishing gigantic corporations that 
build up the wealth of the few at the ex- 
pense of the many ; and the so-called 
"conspiracy laws," and the lawscrcating 
the national guard, passed by the State 
legiel i tines, since their only object is to 
enslave labor and enthrone capital. All 
that is required to bring about needed 
reform in our country, is legislation 
.along the line marked out by Jefferson 
in the Declaration of Independence, and 
strictly to that line^we must hold our 
lawmakers. And to that end let the 
workingmen organize and in every elec- 
tion cast their ballots. 

"VJI. CO-OPRRATION AN!) MoNKY-INTEREST 

Primitive man procured food, (wild 
Iruits, acorns, game audjish), by either 
isolated or by associated effort, but 
when associated with others in effort, he 
received his equitable share of the pro- 
ceeds of their united toil. Hence co- 
operation is uot a new invention of theo- 
rists, but the most ancient, as it is the 
:m >st just, natural and rational system 
•o industry, all other systems being com- 
paratively novel as well as unjust, arti- 
ficial and irrational. 

It has beea proposed by some to in- 
.augurate universal co-operation by 
taxing the rate of interest to be paid the 
■capitalists by the operatives on the cost 
of the manufactories, and to include the 
•capitalists among the sharers in the 
pronto and members of the co-operative 
firm. This would be but right, if, as Mr. 
Henry George says, "interest is just, be- 
ins based on the active power of nature 
— the principle of growth— of reproduc- 
tion—a return over and above that 
which is to bt attributed to labor. * :: 
I put away wine; at the end of the year 
I will have increased value. 1 set out 
dbees; at the end of the year I will ha v.? 
more swarms. I turn out hogs, or sheep, 
or cattle; at the end of the year 1 will, 
upon an average, also have an increase. 
This is," he says, "interest." "Thus/' 
he declares, "interest springs fiom the 
power of increase which the reproduc- 
tive powers of nature and the, in effect, 
analagous capacity for exchange, give to 
capital. * * * It is just."— Progress 
.And Poverty, Book HI, Chap. 2. 

I deny that interest is just. /Phis at- 
tempt of that great writer to draw an- 



alogy from nature for its support in 
reason is, I think, far-fetched. I denv 
that it has any foundation in good 
policy, in leason or in right. It is wrong, 
since it encourages the hoarding of 
money to lend, and discourages invest- 
ments in productive property, to the 
extent that interest absorbs production, 
operating as does rent, to enrich the 
few and impoverish the many. To be 
sure, in the present case, the capitalist, 
is it conceded, has already invested his 
money, directly in productive property, 
giving employment to labor; but the 
article of interest is a tax on production 
still, building up the wealth of the few 
at the expense of the many. There must 
ever be rich men and poor men as lo lg 
as interest on money is paid by the 
many to the few; which fact itself redu- 
ces to an absurdity, it seems to me, the 
argument of Mr. George for interest; 
because the "true commonwealth" that 
he would establish brings population to 
a condition in which neither poverty 
nor riches is known. His " Anti-pov- 
e -ty" is anti-riches, also ; for the whole 
amount of wealth in the United States, 
divided by the whole number of people, 
men. women aud children, leaves but a 
sma 1 quantity to each. 
Interest may ! e lefined taxasaonlabor 
and production for the benefit of idlers. 
And because wine grows better by age, 
bees, sheep, kine and hogs increase nat- 
urally, and plants grow while the farmer 
sleeps, is no proof that this natural 
power of increase inheres in money ; for 
the price placed upon money is arbitra- 
rily fixed by the bank syndicates, who 
have been granted the monopoly of fur- 
nishing to the people that tool of ex- 
change, though the syndicates themselves 
receive the tool directly from the gov- 
ernment, free of interest, The one per 
cent, per annum tax paid by the na- 
tional bankers to the United States govr 
ernment for their bank currency, hardly 
reimburses the government for the cost 
of printing the bills— and upon the sixty 
million dolhrs of mone.v deposited by 
the government in those banks, no inter- 
est is charged, and now if suddenly with- 
drawn a financial crash will ensue 

A most terrible wrong to the many, is 
the national banking system of the 
United States— the government making 
to the owners of bonds, deposited " for 
security," practically an interminable 
free loan or gift of nearly five hundred 
million dollars of money to be re-loaned 
by them to the people at eight or ten 
per cent, per annum interest. This mo- 
nopoly must inevitably ennoble the few 
and enslave the many. Like an eating 
cancer in the throat of a strong man, it 
has, I fear, an almost fatal hold upon 
the vitals of the republic. Why might 
not the many be thus favored by the gov- 
ernment? Why not the maxim, "the 
greatest good to the greatest number," 
be practically enforced ? Why are spe- 



( 59 ) 



oial privilegeH granted the few? If I 
could impress upon the minds of the 
producers of America this most import- 
ant truth, and lead Ihem to insist upon 
its enforcement by Congress, that this 
loan of hundreds of millions of dollars, 
instead of being given, as it is, without 
cost to usurers (the present favored re- 
cipients of this great bounty), to enrich 
them, ought rather to be extended, with- 
out cost, to the toilers, so as to afford 
labor remunerative em ploy merit, through 
a harmonious system of co-operative in- 
dustry, and thus build up co-operation 
by national "protection of labor," di- 
rectly give i and bestowed from the fed- 
eral treasury, I would most assuredly 
receive from posterity the then well- 
merited title of savior of my country 
and emancipator of mark nd. 

VIII. The Distribution of the Surplus. 

The proposal of Gen. Benjamin F. But- 
ler to distribute the surplus revenue, 
accumulated in the national treasury, 
in gratuities to ex-union soldiers, if car- 
ried into practice, would be a very proper 
and most grateful act of justice toward 
those whose valor preserved to us "a 
home and a country." 

But let the government devote the 
surplus to building up co-operative in- 
dustry — establishing co-operative facto- 
ries, opening co-operative mines, digging 
irrigating canals, sinking artesian wells, 
etc., (as it has already by donations of 
money subsidies, built up twenty -five 
iiundred national banks, which are 
purely co-operative associations of 
money-lenders), and the "greatest good 
to the greatest number" will result. The 
old Union soldiers ask only, in com- 
mon with all other toilers, an opportu- 
nity to earn a living by honest labor, 
without being robbed of their earnings 
by syndicates of pampered government 
pets. 

The proposal of Prof. Robert Ellis 
Thompson of the University of Pennsyl- 
vania, points in the right direction, viz: 
to ''distribute the surplus periodically 
Among the States in nroportion to pop- 
ulation, with the proviso that they shall 
expend it in paying their debts, in extin- 
guishing illiteracy aud in defraying the 
ordinary cost of state governments." If 
he had added also, "aud in establishing 
co-operative manufactories, opening 
mines and developing the agricultural 
resources of the states," I would fully 
agree with him. The states would, then, 
soon have no trouble to " pay th >ir 
debts, to extinguish illiteracy and meet 
the costs of government," if the laboreis 
were universally employed in co-oper- 
ative industries; for production would 
be thus increased a thousandfold, en- 
riching both the producers and the State. 
;. Why are so many farms in the n)w 
prairie states under mortgage ? It is be- 
cause, in addition to extortionate freight 
rates and high taxes, the cost of equip- 



ment of a farm (machinery, buildings, 
etc.) is so great now that the home- 
steader has no way to meet it excep t by 
borrowing money at high interest rates 
on his land. Under the old system the 
farmer made his own tools; or such as 
lie was obliged to purchase, were so sim- 
ple and so cheap that their cost was 
easily met. The rude p'oneer cabin was 
built of logs felled on the very ground 
where the cabin, was to stand, and axe 
aud au,'er were the only tools with which 
the pioneer worked to build it. So that 
our fathers who first settled the states 
east of the Mississippi, were compara- 
tively free from the necessity of contract- 
ing onerous indebtedness. Instead of 
contracting the currency to enrich money 
lenders, and depositing the surplus, with- 
out interest, in national banks, loans 
ought now to be extended by govern- 
ment to the farmers and other produc- 
ers, at a rate of interest not above the 
tax paid by national bankers for their 
notes, and for as long a time as a bank 
charter lasts, that is, twenty years; or 
without interest; for if the government 
can afford to deposit sixty million dol- 
lars of the surplus in national banks, 
without interest, as it has done, it can 
loan as much, and a million times more 
if needed, without interest, to the agri- 
culturalists and other producers, on 
whose broad shoulders the government 
rests, who willingly took down the'rguns 
from above their cabin doors to resist 
the tyranny of the mother country m 
177t>, to defend their country's rights 
again in 1812, and to save the nation's 
life by their valor, on a hundred bloody 
battle-fields in 186 L. 

IX. " God Bless Our Home." 

I would have the commonwealth so 
regulate the ownership of land that 
every family would live upon a home- 
stead that they might truthfully call 
"our home." JNothiug on earth so 
sacred as this— nothing so grand as this ! 
The poetry of human existence centers 
right here. Here we behold mother, 
wife and children, and here is uttered 
but this one sentiment — ' God bless our 
home!" Life is all here. All of earth is 
here. Without this right of homestead, 
a man has no footing on this planet. He 
may, it U true, breathe the vital air; 
but water he may not procure, or bread, 
except he do feudal homage to some 
other human being. He must dig on 
other's land for water, he must plow in 
o.her's field for bread. Like the 
Glorious One, " He hath not place 
whereon to lay his head ;" and like him 
he will be crucified. He has no way to 
protect himself — no ground whereon to 
stand; but he is a wanderer, "buffeted 
and spit upon, mocked and despised." 

The natural right of each to a life pos- 
session of a limited portion of land rests 
on the fact that each must live, during 
his earth-life, off the products of land ; 



( 60 ) 



and so much land as is required ior the 
growth of the raw product** necessary to 
his support, belongs as assuredly, by 
divine right, to each individual, as does 
the inalienable possession of his own right 
hand belong to him, with which heguides 
the spade or the plow that turns up the 
noil wherein he plants the seed-grain 
that grows him bread to appease his 
hunger and that of his helpless, depend- 
ent children and the wife he loves. 

The necessity is forced upon us now, 
more than ever before, for protecting the 
ownership of land in the possessiou of 
the many; because the government lands 
open to homestead entry and pre- 
emption claim, being nearly all taken up, 
it will be, in a iittle while, more profit- 
able for capitalists to monopolize the 
lands than to invest their money in rail- 
roads, bonds, etc.; and land ownership 
will become, in a short time, in this 
country, as in Europe it has been for 
thousands of years, the most sure way 
to wealth and dignity. There is no law 
now in America to prevent land monop- 
oly ; and a judge of one of our courts, in 
a western state, (Wisconsin I think), 
gave an opinion several years ago, that 
"laws limiting land proprietorship are 
unconstitutional, as they," he said, "in- 
terfere with or annul the obligation of 
contracts." 

That is to say, the prohibition by law 
of a syndicate of capitalists from pur- 
chasing in the market, if they see tit and 
can do so, all the agricultural lands of VVis- 
eonsin.and converting that state into one 
huge bonanza farm, would be, according 
to this opinion, a violation of the con- 
stitution of the United States. 

To be sure, such an unwarranted 
<; Dred Scott decision," can not long 
block the wheels of progress any more 
than did the noted "Dartmouth College 
Case." The Grangers, (like Olympic Ju- 
piter of the Illiad^ "shook their invinci- 
ble locks and gave the nod," in 1871, 
and the car of progress again moved on. 
It is well understood by courts, and all 
other parties concerned, that inalien- 
able rights must and shall be preserved, 
and the happiness of the people made 
secure. This is the "higher law" of the 
Declaration of Independence of 1776, 
that courts, congresses, or presidents 
dare not disregard, when the people 
speak. 

It must seem to the superficial observer 
that one might of right sell to whom- 
ever is able to buy, and that whoever is 
able to b'jy might of right purchase 
whatever is in the market for sale. But 
the late corners on wheat, pork, oat- 
meal, sugar, coffee, etc.. aie fast leading 
tie American people tu think that old 
maxims of political economy may be- 
come outgrown and obsolete. 

Shortsighted those greedy men, in 
then- haste to get rich, seem to be ! De- 
stioying, through pools and corners, the 
e ( ui"iiluiuu< produced by competition, 



they inevitably bury thus the dead com- 
petitive system of trade, manufacturing, 
etc. Associating to rob the people.the peo- 
ple sooner or later, will be obliged to asso- 
ciate for their own mutual protection — 
the unavoidable outcome of which will 
be co-operation, resulting in emancipa- 
tion of labor, freedom, enlightenment,, 
happiness, peace, grandeur, glory, har- 
mony, perfection— a universal christian 
commonwealth— the United States of the 
World ! 

The land must be made the inalienable- 
inheritance of the many ; it must not be 
"cornered" by thp few. If true, as cur- 
rently reported, that the Vanderbilt's 
wealth aggregates two hundred and sev- 
enty-four million dollars, they alone could? 
purchase, at their present market value r . 
all the agricultural lands comprising not 
less than twenty counties of our beauti- 
ful and most fruitful State of Iowa.* 
I need not argue this point, be- 
cause every one mu k :.t see the dan- 
ger when <h half-dozen American mil- 
lionaires may be named who jointiy 
are rich enough to purchase every acre 
of the farm lands of Iowa. Why ha.ve 
they not done this long ago? Because,, 
up to this time, it has paid them better 
to invest their money in railroads, tele- 
graphs, oil, lands, mines, manufactories,, 
etc., than in agricultural lands. 

But the farmers, by their praiseworthy 
efforts, through Grange and Alliance, to 
curb the greed of railroad corporations, 
and thus make agriculture a "paying 
business," are only paving the way for 
their own children to become renters on 
the very same farms their fathers once 
owned ; for when farming shall be made 
a really profitable business, the present 
land owners will be dispossessed of their 
lands by foreclosure of mortgages, and? 
by other unjust means well understood 
by the capitalists, who have the produ- 
cers at their mercy, and who can by 
manipulating the finance of the nation 
(outracting the national bank circula- 
t oa for instance), bankrupt every 
producer in the United States tin 
ninety days, then buy up the 
real estate of the producing class, 



*Tnere is one American f amily whose pri- 
vate fortunes amount to $-<274,0O0,0OO0, consid- 
ably more than one kalf of the total valuation 
of taxable propety in Iowa. There are five 
eitizens with fortunes averaging- $50,0(0, 0Q. 
e.Hch, fil'ty with $10,000,000, one hundred with 
£5,000, S0'\000, two hundred with §3,000,000, Ave 
hundred with sl,000,000,anrt one thousand with 
$3 5000,000. In other words, 1,835 Dersons own 
wore than $S, 000,000,000, or twice as much as 
all tbe money in the country. A less number 
of men, not to exceed 1,000- railroad magnates, 
princely bankers, and heads of vast corpor- 
o rations— have as complete control as actual 
ownership of at leist $36,000,000,000 more.. 
And Kev. Joseph Cook sa s, "Two thousand 
capitalists own more than all the rest of the 
s-.xty five millions of our population. * * * 
If present cau>es which produce concentra- 
tion of capital continue, the republic will 
soon be owned by less than fifty thousand 
men." 



(61) 



at their own price, bidding most of it in 
at sheriff's sales. The time is near at 
hand, yea, even at our very doors, when 
a few home and foreign .syndicates will 
become the only proprietors of land in 
the United States, unless the people rise 
up in their might and prevent it by 
law — which I anticipate they will shortly 
do. Capitalists now own all the mines 
and manufactories. They have only to 
take possession of the lands to leaye the 
ninety and nine entirely disinherited, 
and as dependent upon the few for the 
bread of life as a dog is upon his master. 
Indeed the sydicates, that own the 
railroads, do (it may be truthfully af- 
firmed) practically own the farms now, 
aud the farmers are only renters, be- 
cause those syndicates are able to col- 
lect whatever rent the land will bear, by 
means of extortionate rates charged for 
transportation of farm products; but 
when the people have succeeded in break- 
ing up this species of robbery, placing 
the farmers in a position to realize large 
profits from farming, will the syndicates 
most assuredly become the direct owners 
of all the agricultural lands bordering on 
their several lines of road, as they have 
already become the direct owners of 
most of the coal lands along their re- 
spective lines of road, and they will have 
those agricultural lands worked for their 
own emolument, as they now have the 
coal mines worked for their own emolu- 
ment, unless prevented by positive law. 

X. What the Law Must Say. 

It must be declared by fundamental 
law that no private corporation may 
own productive (agricultural or mineral) 
lands, and that no individual may own 
beyond a given number of acres of land. 
I would have ail surplus lands appraised 
fairly*and the owners fully reimbursed 
for them by the government in "lawful 
money," (greenbacks). I would have 
those lands resold in small homesteads, 
at their actual cost, on long time to indi- 
viduals who would actually occupy and 
work them. As to cities and city lots, 
I am of opinion that no man ought to 
live upon a less tract of land for a home 
than seven acres. Let cities fall into 
decay, as at present built. Let them 
stand as do the dead Zuni towns, mon- 
uments of a former age of semi-barbar- 
ism ; for they only breed moral and phy- 
sical pestilence on earth. But rapid 
transit is bound to destroy compact 
cities and spread population over the 
country. Soon the distinction between 
city and country will be lost. 

If I seem to speak in favor of the com- 
monwealth owning the lands, I mean it 
not in a sense to interfere with individual 
ownership of a home for each. I see the 
time near, however, when, to utilize 
costly machinery, the people must culti- 
vate the grain fields under some kind of 
co-operative system— a sort of commu- 



nity of ownership must be resorted to of 
necessity. Thus will arise co-operative 
farming. If the grain fields of Iowa 
should be thus held in quasi common 
ownership by all the people of the state 
— each man, woman and child possessing 
a like share or interest in them, a grand 
system of drainage, irrigation, enrich- 
ment of the soil by scientific methods 
may be realized, and the utilization of 
ponderous machinery, so that a town- 
ship might, after awhile, be plowed up m 
a day with a single machine; for who will 
set bounds to the possibilities of inven- 
tion ? 

Mr. George's ' ; landtheory,"is,I think, 
defective, not in the idea of community 
of ownership of land, but in that of ten- 
ant farming: Five hundred millions of 
people may jointly own .the productive 
lands of the United States as well as one 
hundred people may jointly own a bank. 
But every one must, besides have stand- 
ing room — a plot of ground that he may 
call his own, not to be violated while he 
lives, any more than his grave may be 
violated when he is dead. Let " equal- 
ity" be written in the fundamental law 
of the land as it is written in the New 
Testament, where the Apostle Paul says: 
"I mean not that other men be eased 
and ye burdened, but by an equality, 
that now at this time your abundance 
may be a supply for their want, that' 
their abundance also may be a supply 
for your want, that there may be equal- 
ity." 

The lands will be cultivated after a 
little while, witn costly machinery be- 
yond the reach of private ownership, 
the cost of cultivation being met by a 
tax on each farm of a given number of 
acres and adjusted according to pro- 
ductiveness of lands — (as the cost of 
carrying the mails is met by a tax on 
each letter or package of a given weight) 
the best scholarship and engineering 
skill will be called into requisition— the 
whole continent honey-combed with ar- 
tesian wells, canals and reservoirs for 
irrigating purposes dug, mighty ma- 
chines utilized to bring forth the com- 
mon means of support of a numerous 
population who will be thus rendered 
comfortable. 

So will the people co-operate to bring 
out all the hidden resources of nature 
for the support of tiuinan life — the bill- 
ions of money now worse than wasted 
opon standing armies, muskets, Krupp 
guns, ships of war, fortifications, etc., 
will be directed to making the deserts 
blossom as the rese— rent, usury and pri- 
vate capital employing labor will be 
abolished, and the industry of all men 
and all women will be devoted to the 
'.' public service "—making every home a 
" White House," and all work a digni- 
fied office — and each and every legitimate 
pursuit yielding to the workers each, 
and to all other "officials," a just and 



( 62) 



equitable compensation — neither above 
nor below the average income of farmers 
and producers in general — if any differ- 
ence, the rule will be " the harder the 
work the higher the pay,"— keeping ever 
in view the great truth that the only 
object of human effort, according to na- 
ture, is subsistence, and that the amount 
requisite to this is about the same to 
each human bein^. The law should solve 
this one great problem, viz: the equit- 
able distribution of products — which 
will be reached, when to each shall be- 
long the whole produce of his own labor, 
to be disposed of according to the will of 
the producers — and to all shall belong 
the common benefits of machinery and 
the common bounties of nature, not to 
be monopolized by any. 

XL Co-operation Inevitable. 

Machinery, without legislative help, 
has destroyed the small shops and the 
small manufactories. The "little weaver" 
now stands behind a very different kind 
of loom from that of a century ago. 
It was then in his own little cottage, 
surrounded by wife and children, he did 
his work. Now it is in a vast manufac- 



tory, in the midst of hundreds of opera- 
tives, he toils for scanty wages, the 
profits of his labor going to make mill- 
ionaires, and they not a.ll so philanthro- 
pic as was Peter Cooper, nor so patri- 
otic as is Benjamin F. Butler. Machin- 
ery vriil destroy the small farms also. 
Co-operation has become a necessity. 
Association is forced upon mankind bv 
the advance of civilization. Let that 
association be fraternal; and let equal- 
ity of interests and of rights prevail. 
This is all L plead for; that all may co- 
operate, according to the spirit and* 
teachings of the New Testament, as 
brothers and sisters, as equals in inter- 
est — all associations beiny like the church 
organized on the day of Pentecost, de- 
signed to exalt society to the happy con- 
dition of a family circle, in which all ex- 
clusiveness .shall end, in which every child 
shallfreely eatoutof the sugar-bowl, and 
every member of the great family shall 
do his or her part to provide the family 
feast, in which »11 shall sit at the same 
table and no little one be obliged to wait. 
There will be no servants. Each will 
wait upon himself. The commonwealth" 
of humanity will be a Brook Farm.* 



ESSAY VII.— THE FREEDOM OF THE MANY, 



I. Building for the Common Welfare. 

The weal or woe of humanity is as de- 
pendent upon institution as upon any 
natural condition. Good government 
will make a people happy, though they 
inhabit the most barren and desolate 
region, as Switzerland and Iceland, for 
instance. Bad government will render 
them miserable, though they inhabit the 
most fertile region, as Ireland and Egypt, 
for instance. Reform, social and polit- 
ical, consists in bettering the institu- 
tions of mankind. Perfected institutions 
is another name for the Kingdom of God 
on earth. We have only to break down 
whatever is established in the interest 
of caste or class and build for the gen- 
eral welfare to increase immeasurably 
the sum of human happiness. The "per- 
fect commonwealth" assures to its citi- 
zens the Apocalyptic condition of peace 
and felicity — the ''equality" mentioned 
in the Declaration of American Inde- 
pendence as the common birthright. But 
is it possible to build this perfect com- 
monwealthj? It is possible. Let all ex- 
clusive privileges be abrogated, except 
such as are founded in nature — as the 
family. The home must be the only 
"corporate monopoly," it being institu- 
ted by Diety. "Uniformity" will be the 
law of society. All artificial advantages 
will be removed. There will be no rich and 
no poor, no castles and no hovels, but 
one common level that no man will be 
so vain as to desire to rise above, except 
in the development of his God-given fac- 



ulties of mind and heart. This is the 
democracy that is to be— the realization 
of perfect equality as far as institution 
can go— equal privileges to all and each, 
and no special benefits to any— ea^n be- 
ing confined by institution to a strict 
observance of the Golden Rule. 

He is blind indeed who does not per- 
ceive that a peaceful revolution is right 
at our doors. The new unloldment of 
mind has brought a new ciyilization 
The dream of the prophets will be real- 
ized. The deserts wfil be leclaimed do 
cultivation; wars will close; the United 
States of the World is right now at the 
threshhold, and the starry flag of the 
Universal Confederation of republics will 
soon be unfurled. Private interest will 
soon give way to public welfare. The 
era of emigration will close soon. Noth- 
ing will bejeft to mankind but the per- 
fection of institutions o! government at 
home and the enforcement of the nat- 
ural and inalienable rights of humanity. 
A race of thinkers is coming upon the* 
stage who will point the way to the real- 
ization of the equality anticipated by 
Jefferson. One evil and wrong after an- 

*The Sermon on the Mount, however foolish it 
may seein to the standards oi the street, is a 
prophecy of the perfect state, and its principles 
wul yet be the law of the world. Already we 
hear 10 many a social movement that selfishness 
will be fatal to society. A state tnat allows one 
man to own a railroad while thousands starve in 
rags, is doomed to go, and ought to. The polit- 
ical economy of the Golden rale is the on'y one 
that will make society safe.— Rtv. H M Sim- 
mons, in " Unity" May 24, 1888. 



( e3 ) 



other will break down and pass away as 
did chattel slavery. Wage slavery and 
land monopoly are the next to go. Co- 
operative industry will become the uni- 
versal system of labor. Soon will the 
demand go forth for a revision of our 
national constitution of government. 
Then will the toilers do as they did in 
California— control the convention in 
the interest of labor. Soon will all the 
republics of North and South America 
be confederated together in a sisterhood 
of States. European republics will grow 
in number and importance and become 
the Unittd States of Europe. Then will 
soon follow the United States of the 
World, covering the map of both hemis- 
pheres completely. 

II, Perfecting the Imperfect. 

The citizens of this cosmopolitan 
christian commonwealth will be of two 
classes, the strong and the weak. The 
strong will bear the burdens of the weak, 
and the greatest among them will be the 
servants of the rest. Every movement 
will be directed toward perfecting the 
imperfect. The Sermon of Jesus on the 
Mount will be the Constitution of the 
New Republic. 

1. The Master's blessing will be pro- 
nounced on the heads of all little child- 
ren. Th» commonwealth will take them 
in her arms and bless them The bring- 
ing out into beautiful, ripe, mellow and 
delicious fruitage the infinite possibil- 
ities that lie enveloped in the minds and 
hearts of children will be made the pri- 
mary aim of all effort of men, as it is of 
the angels. Yea, it is the sole object 
according to the purpose of nature, for, 
which God created the universe of worlds 
and pronounced His benediction upon 
them of " very good." Hence the best 
practical methods of education that ex- 
perience may sanction will be adopted 
by mankind, and no child will be allowed 
to grow up unprepared for the duties of 
citizenship. Foundlings, orphans and 
all destitute children and youth, will be 
gathered into most pleasant homes, 
where love shall be the only law and 
kindness the only discipline. 

2. And homes of the same character 
will be provided for the weak and incom- 
petent ones, and for all that are inca- 
pable of self-support. These will receive 
care as from loving sons and daughters, 
brothers and sisters, neighbors and 
friendo; for every man and woman that 
God has blessed with health and strength 
to work will be a Good Samaritan, and 
they will speak their gracious voice in 
the Jaws and crystalize their most benev- 
olent will in beneficent institutions, born 
of the thought of Him who "spake as 
never man spake." He "went about 
doing good," teaching us by His example 
the true objects of life. He healed the 
sick ; He cleansed the lepers; He cast out 
the demons; and, dispersing a mob by 



an appeal to inherent manly principle^ 
("He thai, is without sin among you, 
let him first cast a stone at her"), He 
said to the woman what we should say 
in our acts, feelings, and laws, to the 
frail and fallen : " Neither do I condemn 
thee; go and sin no nn.re." And here> 
too, we may learn a better way of con- 
trolling and dispersing a mob whose 
purpose, it may be. to * uphold law and 
order and punish crime" (as at. Jerusa- 
lem of old and at Cincinnati of late), than 
by turning on them Gatiing «uns and 
breech-loading rifles in the hands of 
National Guards. 

o. A more beneficent system than the- 
one that shall have in view the casting, 
out the devils of evil, the reclaiming such 
as go out into forbidden paths — the 
healing the morally »iek, through the 
all-controlling, all-reformative power of 
human kindness and pitying love, who- 
can devise? The first aim will be to 
give pleasant, useful and remunerative 
employment to each failing one. The- 
mducements held before him to activity 
and healthful industry will be such that 
no sane mind can resist them. Each 
will be enticed from wrong-doing — && 
were the mob that would have stoned 
to death the woman taken in adultery — 
by appeals to the divine manhood and 
womanhood latent in the hearts of the 
most ignorant and (so-called) depraved. 

The treatment of the criminal, then,, 
will be compulsory only in this: he wiH 
be domiciled to one place— held in lead- 
ing-strings the same- as a child. ALII 
idea of pains, punishments and 
solitary imprisonments will be expunged 
from the laws. The criminal will be 
brought as a patient into hospital. His 
malady will be treated to be cured. To 
cure as well as to prevent disease we 
must remove its cause. Nature is the 
healer. Crime is the effect of causes that 
may be removed. Every soul will grav- 
itate to virtue and flow on in the right 
course — the course of nature — as water 
in its channel, when the conditions of 
society are made what they ought to be. 

III. Legalized Wrong. 

Who is to blame for the wrong there is 
in the world ? Society is wholly to blame 
for it. There is no path of right-doing 
left open at all by society for men to 
walk in. The "straight and narrow 
way," is barricaded and entirely shut up 
by unjust laws and evil institutions es- 
tablished by society to enable the few 
idlers to rob and enslave the many 
workers. Bad laws and barbarous *' in- 
stitutions" have made luxurious Dives 
possible, and starving Lazarus inevit- 
able. "Business" is licensed theft, as 
saloon keeping is licensed murder. The 
monopolist, through licensed extortion, 
seizes upon the products of the labor of 
thousands of workers and he thus be- 
comes a millionaire— "wrings from the 



( 64) 



iard hands of peasants," by "indirec- 
tion," the fruits of their sweat and toil 
in a " legal" wav. 

A fruitful source of the eWls that af- 
tiiCt us is our giving up the control and 
ownership of public institutions into 
private hands. There is nothing be- 
longing to a railroad of the nature of 
private property. The track, the sta- 
tion houses, ttie cars, the engines, are all 
for public use. The giving up control 
and ownership of these into private 
hands for private profit is the great sin 
of our age. Also the banks of issue are 
public institutions and not private. The 
officials who conduct the business of 
issuing money ought to receive salary 
from the government, like other public- 
officials; but they should not be per- 
mitted to levy tax uncontrolled on pro- 
duction, and thus pile up immense pri- 
vate fortunes at the public expense. The 
insurance business, as at present con- 
ducted, is a gigantic swiadle. Insurance 
companies are institutions authorized 
by legal enactment to defraud and des- 
poil the public. These and the kindred 
monopolies of lands, mine* and manu- 
factories are the chief source of the great 
evils that afflict our country at the pres- 
ent time. 

How much better off is a wage slave 
than was a chattel slave ? And how 
much better off are the farmers of Amer- 
ica "taxed without their consent," by 
Vanderbilt and Gould, than were ou>* 
fathers " taxed without their consent" 
by George Third? How much less bar- 
barous and inhuman is the system of 
wage slavery, than was that of chattel 
slavery? And how much less onerous 
the burdens of the people under the tyr- 
anny of kings Vanderbilt and Gould 
than they would have been under the 
kings of England? Was it not "law" 
that made the chattel slave?— and is it 
not "law" that makes the wagt slave? 
A " fugitive slave law" was enacted for 
the benefit of the "lords of the lash" 
who worked the chattel slaves. A de- 
testable " militia law," enlisting for five 
years and arming with Gatling guns and 
breech-loading rifles, thousands of mer- 
cenary national guards in every state of 
the Union, to shoot down "strikers," is 
enacted for the benefit of the "lords of 
cash," who work the wage slaves. 

Our criminal code was invented D3- 
feudal tyrants to be a weapon in their 
hands, through the wielding of which to 
gain the mastery over their fellowmen to 
hold them in bondage forever. If a 
toiler in Scotland, on the estate of "His 
-Grace," the Duke of Argyll, (who is the 
legal owner of millions of acres of Scot- 
land's soil, just like Jefferson Davis was 
once the legal owner of hundreds of 
slaves), or upon the estate of any other 
duke or lord in Scotland, he should com- 
mit so grave an offense against British 
law as to shoot or snare a rabbit wild 
in the woods, that "His Grace," or lord- 



ship, claims to own by " right of primo- 
geniture"— inheritance from his remote 
ancestor, who won the title to those 
lands and rabbits " with his good broad- 
sword," many centuries ago, from the 
poor Scottish peasants whom he mur- 
dered, men, women and children, in their 
beds, or turned out of doors to starve, 
burning their houses and grain stacks, 
and driving off' their flocks of sheep and 
goats and their cows (the same thing 
that is being re-enacted in Ireland, and 
on the island of Skye to-day by British 
"evictors") — the toiler for killing the 
wild rabbit, contrary to British iaw, is 
compelled to pay an enormous tine or 
be imprisoned for mouths in a loathsome 
British jail. 

Thus are the people kept under the 
yoke by "law" in the old world. Our 
laws are of the same kind and character 
and have the same aim as have the laws 
of Great Britain, our parent country, 
whose common law Ave inherit. Their 
aim is to give power to the dwarfs to 
bind the giants — to the few to fetter the 
many. And though our national con- 
stitution of government was framed to 
"promote the general welfare and to se- 
cure the blessings of liberty to ourselves 
and to our posterity," yet it has not 
got outside the boundary of feudal des- 
potism entirely with all of its "amend- 
ments." Our criminal code ought to be 
got rid of a,s was chattel slavery. It be- 
longs to the dark ages. Its barbarism 
is out of harmony with our civilization. 

The few by means of a false and wicked 
social system gather together the prod- 
ucts of the labor of the many and place 
those products out of reach of the right- 
ful owners — the producers of them. Penal 
laws are enacted to "protect the rights 
of property," that is to say, to enable 
the thieves to keep possession of the 
stolen goods. If a tramp from Massa- 
chusets, or from any other state or coun- 
try, far or near, begs a crust of bread in 
the state of Connecticut, he may, for 
this "crime" be imprisoned a year in 
the penitentiary; and in Iowa the pun- 
ishment is the same for begging a crust 
of bread, as for stealing fifteen dollars 
in money. Thus is "property protect- 
ed," and humanity unprotected, in our 
un-chnstian land. 

IV. A Silver Lining to the Cloud. 

But these barbarities belong not to 
the peop e— lie not at the door of the 
masses. They arise because the people 
have been deprived of a controlling 
voice in the government. Laws are 
passed at the dictation of the monopo- 
lists who, being controlled by avarice, 
have no humanity, more than when the 
great money making industry of the 
eighteenth century was the slave trade. 
If it Avere not for the voice of the people 
the slave trade would be revived Avith 
all its horrors. The common people are 
humane. An illustration of this I met 



(65) 



with last fall. I was introduced to the 
president of a club in New York— a Hun- 
garian association of poor workingnien, 
organized for the helping of the helpless 
—a benevolent society. It was not re- 
ligious in the common acceptation of 
the term. But it filled a place that the 
church ought to fill. A fund of hundreds 
of dollars had been collected, and was 
held in reserve for the relief of poor and 
unemployed Hungarians. So, when the 
common people once control, provision 
will be universally made for all the poor. 
Kemunerative employment will be pro- 
vided, so that no hands will rest in en- 
forced idleness — and no one will beg his 
bread. But step by step the people ad- 
vance. Soon the ninety-and-nine will 
make all the laws. The one will join the 
common ranks, and they will count one 
hundred equals. Our penitentiaries will 
soon become schools of reform. Con- 
victs will be paid wages. They will be 
gathered into pleasant apartments for 
several hours each day before black- 
boards, maps and charts, and instructed 
by kind, devoted and philanthropic 
teachers. Good books and periodicals 
will be furnished them to read. In a 
little while the walls of all the bastiles 
of the world will literally crumble and 
fall to the ground to be rebuilt no more 
to the end of time. Under the dominion 
of just and equitable laws and good 
institutions there will be no more pris- 
ons and no more crime. What Isaiah 
and the Sibyl foresaw, and Virgil and 
Pope put into beautiful verse, will ere 
long be literally fulfilled : 

"All crime shall cease and ancient feuds shall 

fail, 
Returning justice lift aloft her scale, 
Peace o'er the world her olive branch'extend, 
And white-robed innocence from heaven descend 
* * * * * * 

No more shall nation against nation rise^, 
And ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes, 
Nor fields with gleaming steel be covered o'er— 
The brazen trumpets kindle war no more. 



Then palaces shall rise; the joyful son 
Shall finish what his short-lived sire begun - 
Their vines a shelter to their race shall yield 
And the same hand that sowed shall reap the 

field; 
The swain in barren deserts with surprise 
See lilies spring and sudden verdure rise," 

V. Association and Friendliness. 

Association of the workers is the hope 
of the world. The paramount interest 
(that of labor) has hitherto never truly 
associated; but has nearly always stood 
jealously apart. There have been, in 
our country, movements in the direction 
of association. The Grange was one, the 
Knights of Labor is another. When 
the labor interest shall combine in fra- 
ternal relations universally, it will re- 
deem the world from war, poverty, op- 
pression, illiteracy and woe. The mil- 
lions, who by the cultivation of the soil, 
by delving in the mines, and by manipu- 
5 



lating machinery, produce the articles 
of human subsistence and comfort, the 
hard-handed workers of all nations and 
races, united as brothers and sisters to 
mutually protect and help one another, 
as enjoined upon all christians by the* 
Apostle Paul when he said: " We that 
are strong ought to bear the infirmities of 
the weak,"— will make of this world the 
happy commonwealth foretold by the 
divine prophet and sibyl of old, and in- 
augurate the millenial era — the reign of 
Jesus Christ on earth. 

All that has been done for the world's 
advancement has been done by the sons 
and daughters of toil, even the evangel- 
ization of the race , for the divine Mas- 
ter (the Carpenter's Son) chose only 
humble workers— poor fishermen of Gal- 
ilee—as his trusted apostles. Only hum- 
ble toilers and the sons of humble toik 
ers have shown themselves capable of 
doing well his work. It is the Franklins 
and the Faradays, the Agassizs and the 
Hugh Millers that have explored the 
fields of science; the Websters and the 
Clays, the Jacksons and the Douglases, 
the Lincolns and the John Browns, the 
Greeley sand the Garrisons, that have 
done his work as leaders of men and 
teachers ; the Shakspears and the Burnes 
the Bryants and the Whittiers that 
have worked the deepest mines of thought 
None but workers have accomplished 
anything the world may be proud of. I 
have the fullest faith in the toilers, — in 
their wisdom and their prudence, their 
strength and their perseverence, their 
fidelity and their patriotism, their devo- 
tion and their philanthropy. I believe 
in the rule of the people -the " common * 
people" who heard Jesus gladly, and the 
only ones who do still hear Him gladly. 

Avarice is the cause of all wrong — the 
love of money is the root of all evil. All 
ugly strife ends where all interests are 
seen to be identical — where the pains of 
each are sensibly felt by all— where, at 
the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus (indwelling 
in each and every heart) sheds the sym- 
pathetic tear. Let all toilers, without 
distinction of race or color, joiu to- 
gether the world over in fraternal organ- 
ization for mutual aid and the protec- 
tion of the rights of each and all ; and 
all danger will be thus averted of race 
conflict in our country. There is no 
natural antipathy of race against race. 
All tribal and class hatreds are not 
natural ; but artificial. All hate is un- 
natural ; for the author of nature is love. 
The government of God on earth must 
be the crystalization of love in institu- 
tions and laws universally. 

Without a fraternal union of the 
workers of our country, white and black, 
how long before a war of races will begin 
in the south ? I have no partisan end 
in view in what I write; but there is 
danger ahead if the people of our coun- 
try do not fraternize— do not learn to 
love one another— as the true christian 



(66 ) 



brothers and sisters, that they profess 
themselves to be, ought. All children 
must be treated alike by the laws of all 
the states. There must not be one law 
for the "whites" and another for the 

'•"blacks.'' The people, without regard 
to color, must be friendly. That friend- 

i ship must be genuine. Ic must be found- 
ed in sincere philanthrophy— in sincere 
love of man for his fellow-man. See 
what a festering sore there is in the heart 
of the British Empire to-day, which the 
great Gladstone would fain heal — the 
hatred engendered by seven hundred 
years of cruel tyranny. Do we want such 
hatred to gangrene in the heart of the 
American Republic? How did the blacks 
suffer under the yoke of chattel slavery 
irom 1^20 to 1863 in our country— two 
hundred and forty- three years of su- 
preme tyranny and wrong ! Have these 
black people received such kindly treat- 
ment, since their emancipation, as to 
fully join them in adamantine links of 
love and gratitude to their white neigh- 
bors and employers in the south — their 
former masters? A war of races is feared. 
A war of races we shall have, if love does 
not take the place of hate in the bosoms 
of the white people for their black neigh- 
bors — their black christian brothers and 
sisters — followers of the same kind Mas- 
ter—worshippers at the same altar of 
the Christian's God of love. 

In the eight states of the so-called 
tl black belt," where now the two races 
are nearly numerically equal, statistics 
show that the blacks increase in num- 
ber much more rapidly than the whites 
— as 4 to 3 ; hence, I have seen it calcu- 
lated somewhere, that sixty years hence 
there will be in those states, according 
to this ratio of increase, two blacks to 
every white person. 

VI. Cheap Money and Co-operation. 

The question has been asked the work- 
Ingmen of the United States by a very 
prominent politician, Mr. Blaine,why the 
platform of principles of the mighty 
labor organization, the Knights of 
Labor, does.not declare for "protection," 
meaning, of course, a high protective 
tariff on imported goods, that thereby 
labor may be the more generally em- 
ployed and better paid? Now, without 
pretending to speak for the great order, 
or to argue here the tariff question pro 
or con, I will say that a lucid and, I be- 
lieve, most appropriate answer to this 
question was long ago anticipated and 
made, by one who has been ever a devo- 
ted and consistent advocate of the rights 
of labor — I mean the venerable patriot- 
seer, Wendell Phillips, when he said: 
" Cheap money will solve the problem of 
free trade." 

This aphorism of the profoundest 
thinker of modern times, ought to be in- 
scribed upon the American flag in letters 
.of light. It ought to become the watch- 



word of all patriots and the guiding star 
of the Knights of Labor. Protection 
and free trade fuse in the crucible of 
cheap money, and become one. 

Cheap money means a low rate of in- 
terest. Let the rate of interest on money 
be brought down to one per cent per 
annum— the same rate that the national 
banks pay the general government for 
the bonus (gift, not loan) of nearly five 
hundred million dollars of national 
bank money, otherwise untaxed by state 
or nation— each worker paying a one per 
cent per annum tax on his equal share 
of the establishment in which he finds 
employment, he being an equal in inter- 
est with every other individual of the co- 
operative firm, built up and established 
by a direct loan of government scrip 
from the national treasury, just exactly 
as the national banks are built up— the 
people becoming thus the owners, in 
fact, of all labor establishments of every 
kind, as they are of trie national bank 
currency, and the tax of one percent per 
anuum on the cost of those establish- 
ments being a tribute paid by the toilers 
toward the support of government. 

The competition of England in our 
markets will thus be rendered impossi- 
ble, as long as she keeps up the 
barbarous wage system and a high rate 
of interest on money employed in manu- 
facturing. But when she shall have 
come round, the same as we, to co-oper- 
ation and cheap money, we snail no 
longer need protection against her "pau- 
per labor;" for labor will be the only 
aristocracy of our mother-land, as of 
our own, and then, I have no doubt, all 
that speak the English tongue will be 
very willing to be one people under the 
same starrysflag — the flag of the United 
States of the World. 

Thus would mankind, coming into a 
natural sytem of industry, reach a fra- 
ternal union that would put an end for- 
ever to war. I call it natural, because 
by nature one has the same interest as 
another in the employment from which 
comes the subsistence of both. No more 
than subsistence can any one naturally 
claim as his interest personally in any- 
thing ; for only sufficient to this end can 
he individually consume, — Jay Gould, 
for instance, out of his vast nominal 
ownership of railroads, derives only sub- 
sistence,— that is to say, clothing, food, 
shelter and a bed. All other things (as 
musical instruments, books, etc., not 
essential to subsistence) his use of is 
very narrowly circumscribed and their 
benefits are diffused. All absolutely, 
then, that he personally derives (sub- 
sistence) must also be the wages of each 
worker on his roads ; hence the interest 
of each in the road on which he works 
is the same as Gould's, and his ownership 
of the road is in fact as real. I there- 
fore conclude, that the unrestrained con- 
trol by one person of what is essential 
to the subsistence of another person, 



(67) 



is a wrong, when it enables the one to 
enclave the other ; and the right of each 
to a fair opportunity to earn a living by 
honest toil, is certainly a natural, and 
divine right that ought, I think, to be 
enforced by state and national laws, in- 
stituting co-operative industry univer- 
sally — the opportunities to each and all 
being thus, as far as possible, made 
equal, so that each one by the same ex- 
ertion may acquire no more and no less 
than another, except as affected by the 
barrenness or the fruitfulness of nature 
— all artificial limitations and stimula- 
tions being removed, putting an end to 
poverty, and placing a competence 
within the r* ach of each and all. 

VII. Three Systems of Labor. 

There are three systems of labor be- 
sides peonage and serfdom: (1) chattel 
slavery, (2) wage slavery, and (3) co- 
operative industry. Chattel slavery be- 
longs to society in a chronic state of 
war. The chattel slave is legally a pris- 
oner of war coerced into servitude by 
violence. Wage slavery belongs to so- 
ciety in a chronic state of semi-war. The 
wage slave is coerced into accepting the 
price placed upon his labor by his em- 
ployers through his physical necessities 
and by barbarous legislative enactments, 
backed bv military force. Co-operative 
industry belongs to society in a happy 
state of christian civilization, just laws 
and perfected institutions. Here the 
employers and the employed are one and 
the same persons. Hence the true and 
prospective system of industrial or- 
ganization is co-operation. Every kind 
of industry should be co-operative, the 
workers thus securing to themselves all 
the results and profits of their labor. 
Whatever is produced by the hand of 
industry will belong to those by whoso 
skill and industry it is produced. 

Capitalists will not figure as a factor 
in this new system that will, I trust, 
shortly be adopted by all workers in all 
civilized countries. The commonwealth 
will own all the factories, ships, steam- 
boats, railroads, telegraphs, telephones, 
productive lands, mines, and whatever 
else gives employment to human skill 
and industry. Private capital will cease 
to employ labor. Private ownership of 
productive property and all private cor- 
porations and private institutions of 
every kind, organized for private profit 
to be gained off the labor of others, will 
be done away. 

I have already imperfectly indicated 
how this may be brought about; but the 
idea will bear enlarging upon more fully. 
This I proceed now to do. 

VIII. How to Establish Co-operation. 

The present is the parent of the future. 
The evolution (not revolution) is now 
nearly accomplished. The hundreds of 
millions of dollars of money known as 



national bank currency, placed in the 
hands of individual bankers by the na- 
tional government, is a perpetual loan 
or gift never to be repaid to the govern- 
ment as long as the world stands, unless 
the government refuse to re-charter the 
banks, which would indeed be an end 
and abrogation of the system. Here, 
then, is the germ-iaea embodied already 
in law that must develop into universal 
co-operation. If the government of our 
country may place nearly five hundred 
million dollars of money in the hands 
of private bankers to be manipulated by 
them for their private profit forever, it 
may place five hundred times five hund- 
red million dollars of money value in the 
hands of individual toilers to be mani- 
pulated by them for their private profit 
forever. 

Here I might lay down my pen, having 
built the ground work of the superstruc- 
ture, and leave the thoughtful reader to 
complete the lofty building by following 
up the line of reflection already sug- 
gested. He would first discover that the 
government owns the bank currency that 
is afloat. Why may not the government 
(he will ask) take one long and needful 
step forward — exchange this currency 
for productive factories, lands and mines 
and give those factories, lands and mines 
into the control of the toilers just as it 
has given the quasi legal- tender bank 
currency into the control of the bankers, 
and on the same terms exactly, that is 
to say, by the payment to the govern- 
ment by the toilers of one per cent an- 
nua) tax on the cost to the government 
of the productive property entrusted to 
the workers ? If the government has the 
right to give the control of the money 
into the hands of the bankers, it has 
just the same right to give the control of 
the property the money will buy into the 
hands of the toilers. No objection can 
be thought of that does not apply to the 
first the same as to the last — to the 
bankers using the money as well as to 
the toilers using the productive property 
(factories, lands, mines, etc.) the money 
will buy. 

He would discover, secondly, tnat the 
factory, land and mine are better secu- 
rity to the government, for the money 
invested, than is a bond ; for the bond 
eats and devours the substance and life 
of the commonwealth in the shape of 
interest, just like an eating cancer eats 
and devours the life of a man. Not so 
with factories, lands and mines. These 
are property and wealth; the bond, debt. 
It is the hard-handed toilers that secure 
and make sure the payment of the bonds 
themselves. Labor is the only source 
of wealth and the only security the na- 
tion can have for anything. Without 
labor's endorsement the bonds are 
worthless. They must be paid off finally 
in the fruits of toil, the products of 
labor. The laborers do all that is done, 
then, for the nation's prosperity, secur- 



( 68 ) 



ity and protection — furnishing every- 
thing of value that it possesses, and dy- 
ing in the last ditch for the flag. 

Whatever benefits government can 
possibly bestow ought to be bestowed 
freely upon the laborers Only for the 
protection of the laborers ought laws to 
be made. Only to develop the industries 
and resources of a nation, preserve the 
peace, educate the youth, and care for 
the helpless and dependent, should gov- 
ernment exist. Its proper end has been 
perverted where monopolies prevail — 
where the few have secured possession 
and control of the natural resources — 
lands and mines, and of the artificial re- 
sources—money and tools; for these 
should be alike free to every human be- 
ing. The first aim of government and 
law, therefore, should be to assure to all 
the free use of the essential elements of 
production — lands and mines — tools and 
money, — as well as the equal privilege of 
procuring the wild game, fowls and fishes. 
"Equal advantages to all and special 
privileges to none," should be the one 
sole aim of social organization. That 
is the object for which the independence 
of America was won by eight years of 
bloody sacrifice and terrible sufferings of 
our fathers — the end for which the Amer- 
ican republics were created. Until that 
end shall have been completely realized 
the conflict between plebian and 
patrician will continue, as- when the 
Gracchi gave up their lives — as when- 
Hampden fell— as when Jasper received 
his death wound — as when John Brown 
was hung. 

Already governments are advanc- 
ing toward the system of common owner- 
ship of railroads and telegraphs. If the 
government may put money in 
railroads and telegraphs for the 
common good, it may put money 
in factories, lands and mines, for the 
common good as well. While Europe 
organizes armies and builds navies at a 
cost to the public of billions of dollars, 
let America, at still the much less cost 
required, organize co-operative industry. 
Millions of dollars of money subsidies, 
and millions multiplied by.other millions 
of acres of the rich public lands, once by 
a national law set apart to the people 
for homesteads, have been donated by 
our legislators to corporate monopoly, 
under the pretext of "aiding public im- 
provements." What more needed "pub- 
lic improvement" can be thought of 
than the inauguration of co-operative 
industry? This done here it will destroy 
the old, selfish wage system o Jf ' labor in 
the old world and lead civilized man up to 
freedom. But how exactly may it be 
done? 

IX. A More Definite Plan. 

To be still more definite, suppose that 
two hundred factory workers, men and 
women of Des Moines, Iowa, desire to 



establish in that city a co-operative 
woolen factory in which each worker 
shall possess like interest. Let the gov- 
ernment say to them, form yourselves 
into an association to be denominated 
the Co-operative Union of Des Moines. 
The government of the United States 
will furnish to this Union printed bills, 
exactly in every respect like national 
bank money, and have printed on each 
bill the same words that appear on na- 
tional bank notes, as follows : 

"This note is receivable at par in all 
parts of the United States in payment of 
all taxes, excises and all other dues to 
the United States, except duties on im- 
ports, and also for all salaries and 
other debts and demands owing by the 
United States, except interest on public 
debt." 

And the following words also, the gov- 
ernment, may, by constitutional right, 
place upon the bills — words that do not 
appear on national bank money: 

"This bill is secured by all the products 
of labor in the United States, it being a 
legal-tender at par in payment for any 
and all of those products in all parts of 
the United States." 

This money must always be in demand, 
as long as there exists, at home or 
abroad, a demand for the labor prod- 
ucts of our country; and the demand 
for those products can cease only when 
mankind have all the necessaries, com- 
forts and luxuries of life that they can, 
in any manner, make use of. Then 
there will be no use farther for money of 
any kind or description, and gold and 
silver, as well as paper money, will be 
useless, as were the coins in the posses- 
sion of Robinson Crusoe, on his lonely 
island, where there was nothing he could 
expend money for. 

Let two hundred thousand dollars of 
this money be issued to the workers of 
the said Union oi Des Moines, and devo- 
ted to the following ends, under the di- 
rection of a/government agent, appointed 
by the chief of the national or state 
bureau of labor at Washington or Des 
Moines, to oversee the work of building 
and setting in operation co-operative 
factories, mines, etc. One hundred 
thousand dollars to build the factory 
and purchase machinery, fifty thousand 
dollars to buy the raw material to be- 
gin work with, and fifty thousand dol- 
lars to build houses for the workers to 
dwell in. Each worker to share equally 
the profits of the institution and to bear- 
equally the burden of national tax (only 
ten dollars to each member of the Union 
per annum) and to contribute equally 
of individual labor. 

A better way still, I think, would be 
for the government to build, through the 
aid and instrumentality of her own 
legal-tender, "lawful money," the facto- 
ries in localities most convenient, and 
rent them directly to the Unions to be 
run in the way above indicated for the> 



-^ ^ 



(69 ) 



equal benefit of each and the common 
good of all. The first plan, however, re- 
sults logically from the laws already on 
the statute books of the general govern- 
ment, and meets all "legal" objections 
and cavils of the enemy of progress. 

X. The Unification of Labor and tre 
Toleration of Beliefs. 

Trades Unions will, ere long, be uni- 
versally incorporated by law, and state 
and national bureaus of labor univer- 
sally instituted. 

The people, through the agency of con- 
gress, state legislatures and national 
and state bureaus of labor and Trades 
Unions will organize labor and bring it 
to a perfect co-operative system, as com- 
plete as human wisdom can devise. 

The chief organizers of labor will be 
the heads of the bureaus of labor, (1) of 
the nation and (2) of the state, oper- 
ating through the unions. The chief of 
the national bureau of labor will be a 
more important officer than is the pres- 
ident of the United states. But the in- 
tention of the founders of our govern- 
ment was that the President of the 
Union should be the tribune of the peo- 
ple of the Uaion, but alas! he is too 
frequently the willing underling of bank 
syndicates who control his nomination 
by the influence of bank stockholders 
who secure seats as delegates in the 
national conventions. And the head of 
the labor bureau of each State will be a. 
more important officer than is the Gov- 
ernor of the State ; but it was the inten- 
tion of the founders of our government 
that the Governor of the State should 
"be the tribune of the people of the state ; 
but alas ! he is too often the willing un- 
derling of railroad and insurance corpo- 
rations, who control his nomination by 
the influence of their paid attorneys,who 
secure seats as delegates in the state con- 
ventions. 

I shall ever continue to urge upon the 
workers that the first measure to be im- 
mediately perfected for the preservation 
of popular liberty is union— the object 
mutual protection and education of the 
masses The workers cannot win their 
freedom by the ballot (the only way it can 
be won) before they know specifically 
the ends to be accomplished, and the re- 
iorms to be demanded. The word that 
best expresses the creed that all workers 
may unite upon is "Anti-monopoly." 
Let anti-monopoly clubs be everywhere 
organized, and let the workers go to 
thinking and reading, writing and speak- 
ing. Let these clubs be places of freedom. 
Let exclusiveness be banished from them. 
Let every earnest man and earnest wo- 
man be admitted, of whatever race, 
color or creed, and let his or her voice 
be attentively heard, and the ideas of 
each be fairly considered and carefully 
weighed. Let truth be sought for, and 
that dispassionately. Let madness be 



kept out. Let no undue prejudice con- 
trol the minds of the workers. When 
men are mad, or prejudiced, they cannot 
reason. Whoever appeals to prejudice 
or passion may be set down a Le Caron. 
He is no safe counsellor who advises 
violence. 

The greatest hinderence to co-operative 
effort is the belief that all men are dishon- 
est in their motives who do not see things 
just as we see them, and act just as we 
act. If one does not walk exactly in the 
path that we think the right path, why 
he is "bought up." Everybody, not 
of our party, is "corrupt." The motives 
of everyone who may go actively to 
work in any cause are impugned by some 
persons. "He does this," they say, 
" for office," or " he has been hired to do 
it." If I am a Eepublican, I think all 
Democrats "disloyal," if a Democrat, 
all Republicans are " boodlers." If I am 
a Labor Party man, all that belong to 
the "old parties" are "rotten." Nobody 
is honest but those of my faction. 
Really I am about the only honest per- 
son there is left— like the old Scotch 
lady who said, "I and my husband 
John are all that hold the true religion ; 
and, really, I have grave doubts of John's 
orthodoxy." 

There are many dishonest people in the 
world, it is true; but, as a rule, all men 
may be considered sincere and honest. 
We must have confidence in bur fellow- 
men. We must believe in the divinity 
of man, rather than that all men are 
devils. 

The line of the Ohio poet, Brannon, 
"all men are better than they seem," 
may be adopted as a safe rule by which 
to judge our fellowmen. We should con- 
sider no man dishonest before he has 
been convicted by irrefragable proof of 
dishonesty— and then we should have 
charity. I suppose that even Benedict 
Arnold had an explanation of his con- 
duct that gave some plausible justifica- 
tion to his friends, of his treason. 

So the enemies of American progress 
are sincere and honest in their opinions, 
no doubt. They do the best they know. 
They act according to their beliefs. The 
Tories in the English House of Commons, 
voting coercion for Ireland, act hon- 
estly for what they believe to be right, 
just and patriotic, I presume, though it 
is very hard for us to think so. It is 
with them like it is with the hunter kill- 
ing the harmless deer. The hunter does 
not see his action in the same light the 
deer sees it. He has no compassion for 
the poor dumb creature, that has as 
valid a right to "life, liberty, and pur- 
suit of happiness" as the hunter himself 
ha,s. The wolf does not consider that 
the lamb has any rights. 

George Washington and Thomas Jef- 
ferson were slave-owners. They were 
not consciously bad men, I am willing 
to admit. 

Men honestly differ in opinion and ac- 



(70) 



tion, let us always concede. Our inter- 
ests color our opinions — shape our ac- 
tions, as a general rule — unconsciously, 
we must believe. Few men do as How- 
ard did, or as it is reported the great 
Euskin has done— "sell all and give to 
the poor" — therefore few are "perfect," 
but most men act as conscientiously, I 
dare believe, as did John Howard and as 
does John Ruskin,but they are not so en- 
dowed with the "wisdom from on high." 
Truly man must be " born again" to be 
a true christian; and "scarcely can a 
rich man enter into the kingdom of God." 
But we must remember the trinity of 
virtues, "faith, hope and love," and we 
must not forget that the "greatest of 
these is love." We must exercise infinite 
charity, remembering that our warfare 
is against institutions, and not against 
individuals. It is for the good of hu- 
manity we labor, and we would wrong 
no man. And especially should we re- 
spect every man's good name. 

The only hope for the perpetuity of 
free government in the United States, 
and the preservation of the Constitution 
of 1789 (if it still exists de facto), rests 
upon the possibility of the many to com- 
bine in one vast Union and speak with 
one voice through the ballot-box. 

XL Co-Operation our Eldorado. 

But the one great reform that we must 
vr^rk in season and out of season, by 
day and by night, to establish, is co- 
operation. We must insist that co- 
operative manufactories shall be built 
up precisely as the national banks have 
been built up, that is to say, by the 
government. The national banks are 
co-operative institutions after which all 
co-operative labor associations may be 
modeled. I rest here my argument for 
the constitutionality of co-operative 
associations of workingmen deriving 
from the national treasury money gra- 
tuities (as the national banking asso- 
ciations have done) for establishing fac- 
tories and workshops, for securing pos- 
session of mineral, coal and agriculture 
lands— for digging irrigating canals, bor- 
ing artesian wells, sinking coal shafts, 
building ships, steamboats, railroads, 
telegraphs— giving remunerative employ- 
ment to the worktrs, assuring to all the 
the proceeds of their industry— the entire 
fruits of their manly toil — thus putting 
a final period to tho enslavement of 
labor, and bringing about the practical 
equality of all men. The authors of the 
national banking law "builded better 
than they knew." ThatlawisourMag-wa 
Charta of co-operation. 

XII. Jacob and Esau. 

The money that has built up the na- 
tional banking institutioasand even the 
massive blocks of buildings in which the 
trust and loan companies have their 



headquarters in all American cities — the 
most costly blocks of buildings — and the 
money that those syndicates loan to the 
people, is absolutely a free gift from the 
government to the money-lenders. That 
same gratuitously-bestowed money has 
built also myriads of "flats," developed 
abnormally the growth of cities, and 
retarded proportionally the develop- 
ment of the country by plastering iron- 
cl ad mortgages on a 1 arge percentage of the 
farms — mortgages that can never be lifted 
by the farmers from their lands ; be- 
cause the power of bankrupting the pro- 
ducers has been bestowed upon the usur- 
ers, in giving them control of the money- 
circulation of the nation— they being 
able to make money scarce or plentiful 
when it is to their interest to do so. The 
many have been impoverished and the 
few enriched by legislative enactments, 
creating the bond, the railroad, the in- 
surance and the banking monopolies, 
and granting to private corporations 
land and money subsidies. The govern- 
ment of the United States has ever been 
"paternal;" but it has helped only the 
few favorites of its household, and left 
the many to starve. Its great patri- 
mony has been bestowed on Jacob alone. 
It meant to bless Easu, it may be, but 
Jacob has secured it all— how? by 
trickery . Open your eyes wide, O reader, 
and behold how fruitful Nature yields 
her stores directly to the many. These 
stores have been taken from them and 
gratuitously bestowed by our govern- 
ment upon the soft-handed few. If it 
were not for a wicked system of cun- 
ningly contrived law that has come down 
to us as an inheritance of evil from the 
old world, and from an age of tyranny 
and barbarity, the few could not acquire 
the surplus wealth.* What is it that 
gives the produce of the fruitful farms of 
Ireland into the hands of alien land- 
lords? Coercive laws. What turns over 
the rich products of our lands to the 
Goulds, to the insurance corporations, 
trust and loan companies, etc? Iniquit- 
ous statutes. Does nature require and 
compel the agriculturists thus to part 
with the great bulk of the fruits of their 
toil ? No. All is conventional — all is the 
result of unjust legal enactments. The 



*No man conld set perceptibly richer than his 
neighbor unl< ss» somwlaw helped him. A favor- 
able law to a bank t, broker, merchant or manu- 
facturer, is what, a pistol is to a inVhwaynian, or 
a dark-lantern and jimmy to a burglar. It ie 
something which g'ves him advantage over his 
neighbor, by which he can rob him. Men get 
r ch because land and mouey are monopolized. 
This enables them to rob their neighbors and 
call it f aking rent, interest or profits. Abolish 
land titles >nd take your legal restrictions off 
money, and I care not'how shrewd or able a man 
is he cannot get rich above his neighbors. No 
man ran get rich above his neighbors in a mor- 
ally honest manner. When all men work for 
waees* and can get no rent, no Interest and no 
profits, some men will be bettpr off" than others, 
though not much, but no man need be poor. — 
From a sermon by Rbt. Hush O. Pbstbcobt, 



(71 ) 



balances are adjusted by law to favor 
capital. The just equilibrium is des- 
troyed by bad government, How much 
might be saved to the farmers by the 
equitable laws they are laboring, through 
grange and alliance, to secure for their 
protection. 

Without coercive laws, wage slavery 
could not exist in any part of the world 
any more than chattel slavery could 
have existed in the Southern States of 
the Union , without coercive laws. Why? 
Because, the system being unjust and 
„ unnatural, the stalwart workers would 
insist upon an equitable division of 
profits, and they would, enforce peace- 
fully their righteous demands, if not re- 
strained from doing so by legal coercion. 
Strikes are only the necessary and justi- 
fiable efforts of the wealth producers, 
under present conditions, to retain an 
equitable share of the wealth they them- 
selves have produced. But the national 
guard has been organized to defeat these 
efforts of the workers for self-protection 
—to keep the yoke fastened forever upon 
the necks of the wealth-producers. 

XIII "An Outrage Upon the People." 

The permanent stoppage of all wage 
production and of all transportation 
and commerce on account of strikes, 
would be but the collapse of a false sys- 
tem—its death. A fair balance of inter- 
ests so that both employers and em- 
ployed are satisfied, is all that should 
keep alive for a day wage industry. The 
mutual interests of the parties directly 
concerned should settle all disputes 
without coercive laws and violent pro- 
ceedings by the authorities to compel 
the wage slaves to go to work. If un- 
bearable exactions and extortions bv 
robbers cause "strikes" among the rob- 
bed, interfering with commerce and pro- 
ducing famine of fuel or bread, and other 
like effects highly injurious to public in- 
terests, what should be done ? Must our 
government join hands with the masters 
against the slaves (as it is doing now) 
and coerce these into obedience, as the 
European governments have always 
done ? Do the coercive laws of the Tory 
parliament of England enforce justice in 
Ireland? I declare, no. "Law in Ire- 
land," (in the words of Mr. Gladstone), 
" is an outrage on the people." Neither 
do the laws of this country, in relation 
to labor and production, enforce justice 
here. They are an outrage on the toil- 
ing millions of America. 

XIV, The " Single Tax." 

I quote Mr. George: "The single tax 
contemplates the abolition of all taxes 
upon labor." 

How is this possible ? Does not labor 
pay all taxes, whether direct or indirect? 

"Each man is entitled to all that his 
labor produces. Therefore, no tax 
should be levied on the products of 
labor." 



Is not all tax the appropriation of a 
portion of labor's products to the com- 
mon use ? 1 he theory is, it is volunta- 
rily bestowed by the producers. Taxes 
are never paid bv any except by those 
who labor. Those who do no work, 
whether poor or rich, pay no taxes. It 
is only toilers that pay taxes. Whether 
levied on the Vanderbilts or on the farm- 
ers, the toilers pay it. The only question 
is, how may the taxes be equitably dis- 
tributed so that each son or daughter 
of toil may give only his or her equal 
share , and how may the idlers be put to 
work and made to contribute their 
proper share of the products of their 
own toil; for no one has any right to* 
the products of another's toil, nor can 
he say how the products of another's 
toil shall be distributed. Let each dis- 
pose of his own. 

"The single tax is taking what would 
otherwise go to the owner, as owner 
and not as user." 

This I say is right. But why not con- 
fiscate "interest" as well as "rent?" 
Why a "single tax?" Usury is eating; 
the world up. Why not the national 
government become the only lender of 
money? It now lends to national bank- 
ers millions without interest, and hund- 
reds of millions at one per cent per an- 
num. Why not turn into the national 
treasury a portion of the "interest" 
that is being paid national bankers and 
other money lenders by the producers, 
and leave the balance with the producers 
to help them ? 

It seems to me that " interest" . ought 
to be confiscated as well as " rent." If 
not, why not? 

XV. Fencing Out Old Mammon. 

Our fathers have said that "all men 1 
are created equal and endowed by their 
Creator with the inalienable rights of 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- 
piness. To preserve these rights, govern- 
ments are instituted amongst men, de- 
riving their just powers from the consent 
of the governed." Out of this doctrine 
of equality will be evolved the perfect 
commonwealth. Then will be given to 
each by law and institution, by equit- 
able, social relations and conditions, 
the same glorious surroundings, and the 
same sweet encouragement. The same 
bow of promise will appear in the sky of 
each, and then each will give the same 
hearty cheers, will march to the same ani- 
mating music, and keep step in the same 
grand armv of happiness, usefulness and 
activity from youth to old age, from the 
cradle to the grave. 

Let us fence out old Mammon, insur- 
ing to each person by law an equal share 
of God-given manna, preserving to each 
to be controlled, used and bestowed by 
him as he sees fit, the fruits of his own 
manly toil, taking not from him his 
equal right to the land, to the water, to 



( 72 ) 



the fishes that swim in the seas, lakes 
and rivers, to the wild fowl that fly 
in the air, and to the wild beasts that 
graze in nature's forests and on her 
plains and mountains— allowing not to 
one a privilege that is not allowed to all 
others — tying no man's hands, destroy- 
ing monopoly, and following along the 
straight and narrow path of righteous- 
ness, then all men will be as happy as 
children, and idleness, want, suffering 



and crime will bid adieu to earth and 
life will be worth living. 

But the workingmen will bid wars 
cease, and they will make of this earth 
an Eden. They are gods, and their voice 
must control, destroying, "thrones and 
dominions, principalities and powers," 
and inaugurating: the new era of universal 
democracy and establishing the grander 
Union — the Confederation of Republican 
Nations— the United States of the 
World. 



A HYMN OF FREEDOM, 



( IOWA— PART THIRD. ) 



A MORNING S MEDITATION ON THE BANKS OF THE DES MOINES. 

"Still true to reason be my plan."— Akenside. 



Prefatory— (Addressed to my good and true friend, Hon. James S. Clarkson. 
to whom is due my life-long gratitude.) 



To you, O Patriot, I write— 
For life is short, and high my aims, 

And Time will not retrace his flight, 
And I must do what duty names — 
My country lays on me her claims 

Te end my task before 'tis night, 
Before the patriotic flames 

Are quenched that beam upon my sight. 

It has been giyen me to strive 
In noble battle for the truth, 

That Liberty may still survive 
And animate the hearts cf youth 
Till Time shall gnaw with baleful tooth 

The bones of such as now contrive 
To weave the spider's web uncouth 

And snare the hopes of all alive. 

O let your friendship beam on me ! 

Dispel the clouds above my way ! 
You will rejoice ere long to see 

The zeal for Right I shall display, 

What dreadful giants I shall slay, 
How many fettered I shall free — 

The voice of Truth I will obey 
And stab the heart of Tyranny. 



I'll fell the Upas tree of woe 

That flings its shade o'er every town- 
More dreadful than the fiend below, 

It strikes the loving father down, 

Poisons the magnate and the clown — 
The Devil, wandering to and fro, 

(He of unenviable renown) 
Is not so much'of man the foe. 

I'll bless all that are under ban, 

The prisoner in his lonely cell — 
To serve the humblest is my plan, 

On Zion's walls a sentinel 

To guard the sacred citadel, 
And of Reform keep in the van, 

Invade the domain e'en of Hell 
To save from woe my fellow man. 

To all alike shall manna fall, 

And 1 shall climb the gleaming heights, 
And look from Pisgah's mountain wall 

Upon the loveliest of all sights, 

The promise of serene delights, 
Bringing equa'ity to all — 

Yea, equal privilege, equal rights— 
And these shall woman disenthrall. 

June, 1884. 



( 73 ) 



THE PRELUDE. 

At forty-four with heart as young 
As when a beardless boy I sung — 
At forty-four witb hope the same 
And love of honorable fame— 
The same unconquered mind and free, 
But chastened by Adversity,— 
Oh may the path that I have trod 
Be hailed the narrow way to God! 
At forty-four I strike anew 
The harp laid down at twenty-two,— 
Awake the patriotic strain 
To rise into a grand refrain 
.Resounding over land and main— 
A Hymn of Freedom hold and strong 
The bane of Tyranny and Wrong! 

SELF-ABNEGATION. 

Thy waves, Des M>ines,thou happy stream 
Emblem of life, oi virtue seem, 
Gliding onward day and niirht. 
Limpid, joyous, onre and bright. 
The Pr nee of Evil from below 
Cannot retard the onward flow 
Of Gods grea f wave that has set in, 
submerging continent of sin. 
The race of kinp, like PharaohVhost, 
Beneath that tidal-wave i.» lost, 
And grasping Gree'i and Avarice drown, 
And War and Povertv go down, 
But Love, Equality and Peace 
Shall b'ess for a\e the human race. 
True Christianity restored, 
Mammon no longer is adored; 
All one common brotherhood, 
q i « g u° d of a11 the greatest good, 
belf-abnegation is the leaven 
To metamorphose Hell to Heaven, 
Transform this world of selfishness 
Into a Paradise of Miss— 
A Christian community- 
Declaim against it, Pharisee! 
Twas Selfishness deprived of life 
Both Ananias and his wife; 
It is the same to-dav as then 
i I speak as unto Christian m^n) 
Tie Selfishness keeps back a part; 
Why, why conceive it in thy heart 
To he unto the Holy Ghost? 
Thus life, O selfish soul, is lost! 
No Mfe has he who lives for pelf ; 
No life has he who worships" Self ; 
immortal life is his who dies 
£ or other's good a sacrifice. 
While duty is a sacred word, 
Whi e to dishonor daa-h's nreferrcd, 
Whie country, home and flag are dear, 
While dims an eye the patriots tear, 
inou'lt be remembered, Kinsman.* 
Of Iowa's twenty thousand braves 
lhat rest in honored patriots' graves, 
None had a larger heart than thine; 
wnilelowi's glorious sun shall shine, 
luou It be rememhered, Kinsman! 
And oh, I see the time quite near, 
When Selfishness shall disappear! 
When each shaU live and act a 3 though 
He were unto himself a foe — 
So great his philanthropic zeal, 
So wedded to the c immon weal.— 
As Kinsman gave his life, his all, 
Responsive to his country's cill, 
So ever has Divinity 
Incarnate in Humanity, 
Mid scenes of fluffing and sin, 
Displayed its heavenly origin. 
The ■« better nature" wi'l control, 
In time at hand, the human soul. 
The lion with the lamb shall dwell; 
As old time prophecies foretell. 

THE DARK HOUR. 

The darkest hour, so sages say, 
Is just before the dawn of dav; 

*Wm. H. Kinsman, colonel of the 23d Iowa 
Volunteer Infantry- was mortally wounded in 
the charg > at Black River bridge, Miss., May 17, 
and died May 18, 1863. 



Before the Negro's shackles fell, 
Gross darkness and the rebel yell ! 
Now intense darkness shades our eyes 
veiling the planetary skies— 
The few grow rich, the many poor, 
And trampg are dogged from every door; 
The millioLaire would have his word 
And e'en his very whisper heard, 
And Congress bow before his nod, 
And Presidents cry "Gould is God!*' 
It cannot last; it must not stand; 
No autocrat shall rule this land ;- 
He would as well attempt to force 
The Mississippi from her course 
The Freedom, that the Fathers sought, 
Is pillowed on the common thought, 
And rests secure, as Warren's fame 
And Washington's immortal name ; 
The world will not have long to wait- 
Hear Iowa greet a sister State: 

IOWA TO CALIFORNIA— AN ODE OF 1878 

0'<t sovereign States 
The slimy rhings — 
Huge railroad rings 

And syndicates- 
Reign cruel kincs. 
Hail, California! 

Toilers, dethrone 
Those ghouls of Greed! 
It is decreed 

That ye alone 
Are kings indeed. 
Hail, California! 

O'er work, well done 

Rejoice, O State; 

Exult elate — 
Swing glad upon 

Thy golden gate! 
Bail, California! 

They spurn the yoke 

Who plow and plod ; 

They give the nod— 
Thv people spoke 

The voice of God ! 
Hail, California! 

Now cheer on c r eer ! 

Green, green's thy tree 

Of Liberty, 
And God is near 

To aid the free! 
Hail, California! 

THE DAY STAR. 

Not long will blindne-a hide from view 
The rights of all and shield the few ; 
Notlong the people now betrayed ! 
Wil 1 bide the bonded debt unpaid, 
Whil ■' billions, from the toilerd wrung, 
Are to the ravenous usurer* flung. 
What agent moves with mightier force 
Than lightniag in it» downward course? 
Almighty thought divinely wrought, 
Invincible, immortal thought! 
The subtlest agent God has given : 
The grain of mustard seed, the leaven, 
The Kingdom of the Christ from Heaven. 
' Say what you will, talk as you may, 
We see the dawning of the day, 
The day that sets all labor free, 
Establishing Equality. 
And labor now lilts up her head 
As if awakened from the dead, 
And her edict bat gone forth 
Over all the mundane earth: 

THE EDICT OF LAB@R. 

L«t the laws no longer say, 
"Inu must work and he may play." 
What my own hard hands oroduce 
Shall be sacred to my use ; 
The sweat of thine own face (as said 
In Holy Writ) shall give thee bread, 
But the helpless must be fed; 
The aged and the little ones 
Asking for bread must not get stones; 
Ah, never call it "charity," 



( 74) 



The bread that is theire rightfully— 
Rightfully 'tis theirs to live ; 
Rightfully 'Us ours to give 
Mil'.ons to support the poor — 
Not a cent for tribute more- 
Tribute to Monopoly 
And accursed Usury. 
All the bounteous gifts bestowed 
By the gracious hand of God, 
Gifts, like water, land and atr, 
All mankind may tqual share; 
Thar, which Toil does not create 
16 to all men consecrate, 
No one may monopolize 
The manna siven from th» skies; 
All that God in kindness giv. s 
Belongs to eacb alike that lives — 
Let the laws no longer say, 
• You must work and he may play." 

A CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. 

When Jesus comes, as John portrayed, 
And all his glory is displayed, 
The New Jerusalem foretold 
With gates of jasper, streets of gold 
Descending, and Meseiah reigns 
And man e ernal bliss attains, 
And all are joined by love supreme 
Beyond the wealth of poet's dream. 
Are joined by links of God-given law 
That to accordance all shall draw, 
So that, as one, humanity 
Will live in perfect unity, 
And isolation be unknown 
And selfishness be dead and gone, 
Then all shall move in orbits grand 
Obedient to God's command, 
As meve the planets, and one soul 
(Though many) animate the whole, 
Thus shall we reach the happy station 
Where is complete co-operation. 
But here we may approximate 
The grandeur of the immortal state; 
The Commonwealth may gain a hight 
To bring the Promised Land in sight. 
Behold the P.-ntecostal host 
Receive overjoyed the Holy Ghost- 
Not less enrapturing the view 
Of wh it the multitu le will do ; 
For have we not the Christian law 
The Sibyl and Isaiah foresaw, 
The law of love— refreshing fount 
Out gushing fr^m t ie Holy Mount— 
The words of Jesu - ! See the same 
Our code in fact as well as name! 
The world for full six thousand years 
Has been imme.s d in blood and tears, 
Because to Mammon has been given 
The hou age due to God of Heaven. 
Vile Avarice! thou hast sufficed 
To bar Humanity from Chrisi ! 
For (as great Milton has well told) 
Base hirelings hav- kept the fold, 
And watched the fl >ck to get the fleece ; v 
But soon their ravening* sha 1 cease. 
See every s^ul a priest and king 
And never one an underling, 
And all the poor come to hi-* feast, 
The least are grear, the greatest least. 
His Kingdom a grand Commonwealth 
Of true equality and heali h ; 
Toe lame all walk; the blind all see; 
All prisoners from their chains are free. 
Anon the light shall beam on all, 
And modern Babylon shall fall— 
The Babylon of tribal hato 
That curses now both church and state, - 
And love shall conquer. God is love, 
And Love Almighty rules above; 
'Twill free the world;— the human race 
Shall bow to. Jesus and embrace; 
The grain of mustard seed bring forth 
A mighty tree to fill the Earth ; 
The Woman's little lump of leaven 
Expand and fill both Earth and Heaven, 
And peace prevail on every shore, 
The nations learning war no more. 
We then behold, and not till then, 
The true equality of men ; 
We hail the glorious ensign 



And :»ee all nation* wheel in line;; 
That ensign the resplendent star 
That led the Magi from afar. 
To where the Matron undefiled, 
In lowly stable nursed her child. 
O angel hosts, rejoice and ?ing! 
O wise men, bring your offering, 
Of gold and frankincense and myrrh r 
To Him the Righteous Law-giver! 
O Master, I do offer thee 
My homage in sincerity; 
No other teacher ever brought, 
As gift to man, diviner thought; 
No other Master's life divine 
Outshines the glorious life of thine; 
No other Rabbi ever stood 
Embodiment of "doing good." 
Thy lofty purpose was to give 
Mankind example " how to live;" 
Thoulivest. they thought supreme (above 
All other thought) all potent love; 
It yet shall bring the world to be 
One peop e, one fraternity,— 
Not tribal like the Jewish state, 
Not narrow like the sects of ha e; 
But comprehensive. See unfurled, > 
"United States of all the World!'" 
This is the end Isaiah foresaw. 
The ripeness of the Christian law. 
Did not thy followers unite, 
Guided by Pentecostal light, 
Unite, combine, become as one, 
As are the Father and the Son — 
Exemplify by close emorace 
The oneness of the human race? 
O men who claim the Christian name,, 
Why put the Son of God to shame, 
Deny the faith?— Read "Acts" and say 
What was the Church of early day- 
Seeing that Church do we not see 
The type of what mankind shall be? 

UNIFORMITY. 

Soon the battle will begin. 
'Gainst the giant powers of sin ;— 
See the cause of God succeed! 
Righteousness shall conquer Greed; 
Private wealch will be unknown, 
In the day that hastens on; 
Private capital no moi e 
Shall enslave the toiling poor; 
All the land will then be tilled 
By the owners of the field; 
Their own harfds will plow and sow; 
Their own hands will reap and mow.. 
Soon shall perish Tenantry; 
Rent will die with Usury 
Soon each man a home sha'l have ; 
On his own proud acre live. 
Soon of cities (Sin's retreats) 
Grass will grow upon the streets; 
Where now millionaires reside 
There will owls securely hide; 
And the serpent and the toad 
There will find a fit abode. 
No longer will palatial domes 
Look proudly down on humbler homes — 
Eyery patriot will disdain 
To dwell above the common plane; 
The fundamental law shall be: • 
"Love, Peace and Uniformity." 
The greatest— the most truly blest- 
Will be servant of the rest— 
The Godlike man, whose noble Blind 
Reaches farthest toward his kind, 
The father of the fatherless, 
The widow's helper in distress. 

NATURE'S LESSON. 

Mark the working of the bee, 
Fittest type of industry. 
How, according to fixed plan, 
(Learn a lesson here, O man !) 
Dots fhe build her waxen cell, 
And she builds the structure welL 
Now is Nature's lesson taught 
In the works the bee has wrought; 
Thus, within the human hive, 
All alike may build and thrire— 
None be rich ani none be poor; 



(75) 



All partakers of the store- 
Each his part assigned to do ; 
Each to Nature's laws as true- 
Institution will bring forth 
Eden of the fertile earth - 
Justice will be brought about 
When the drones are driven out. 

[THE SUNRISE. 

Put your hands together, then; 
Think and act, O workingnien ! 
Think what great Lycurgus did 
For Sparta, in an age of blood ; 
Remember, too, our patriot dead, 
And all they bravely did and said; 
The glorious charter that they won — 
The deed drawn up by Jefferson 
Proclaiming man's equality 
A promise of what was to be— 
What was to be, but is not yet, 
A sun to rise and never set 
When man shall find his highest good 
And cease to shed his brother's blood 
And build a state that will eclipse 
The promise of the Apocalypse. 
For what they nobly did and said 
Give honor to the patriot dead. 

A HYMN TO THE DEAD. 

We see the dead; wej know them— touch their 
hands ; 

While they enfold us in their loving arms- 
Obey their voices ; list to their commands ; 

It is their fire our freezing bodies warms ; 
'Tie theirs all that we have; whatever stands, 

Endures, is valued, benefits or charms, 
The dead bestowed upon us in their lives : 
Lay earth to earth, what is it still survives ! 

The good that they have done— this, this Is ours ; 

It stands eternal and will not fall down ; 
But name the good they'v3 done— built Babel 
towers? 
Acquired on fields of blood the conqueror's 
crown f 
Wrenched states from states and added powsrs 
topowerB? 
And filled the world with£woe and theirare- 
nown ? 
Not so, not so— a grander work they did, 
More lasting than the firmest Pyramid. 

'Tis to the dead we owe all that we have t 
Our institutions and inventions all; 

Without their work none would be living sa^e 
The acorn-eating savages. The wall, 

Betwixt the living and the dead— the grave, 
Hides nothing from us that »e would recall ; 

The living are afar— the dead are near;— 

The Jiving are unsesn; the dead appear. 

All that have fallen for their country's sake, 
They stand before us in our glorious laws ; 

The uaiuts that graced the scaffold and the stake, 
They live Immortal in the people's cause;— 

'Tis only by self-sacrifice we b*-eak 
The power of Evil and win God's applause ;-- 

His workers toil and suffer and expire — 

And they alont are bidden: " Come up higher." 

BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER. 

Patriot. 

At Wilson's Creek, Iowa made 

Herself a name that cannot fade ; 

And her undaunted bravery won 

To Uiion flag Fort Donelson. 

On Shiloh's mournful field she stood, 

Her garments dripping with her blood; 

Her oravest sons in hundreds fall 

By shot and shell and minie-ball ; 

Ac Corinth and Inks hear 

From Iowa boys, the victor's cheer ; 

Port Gibson, Raymond, Champion Hill, 

Black River Bridge, and, grander still, 

Above the cleuds with Hooker, eaught 

Fore glimpse of glory, as they fought ! 



Poet. 

But, oh, the fratricidal strife. 

Where brother seeks a brother's life! 

Let, let it not be understo'd 

That war can ever be a good:— 

It. is unmitigated sin, 

Nor are they conquerors who win: 

It is a serpent, crazed in fight, 

That perishes of its own bite; 

Yea, so declares the Sacred Word, 

They perish thus that " take the aword. 

Patriot. 
Yet roen display on fields of war, 
The qualities that in them are,— 
Exalted bravery, fortitude, 
Self-sacrifice for other's good,— 
And in these qualities we see 
Sure promise of what is to be, 
When love ehal'. rule and man be free. 

THE PROMISE. 

In halls where Peace rejoiced, 
Voiced 
By maids and swains, 
In sweet refrains, 
And golden strains, 
Bombs burst! 

In halls,— places ot prayer, 

Where, 
Devoutly heard 
Is the Word 
Of the Lord, 

Bombs burst! 

Lo ! ** Wars shall be no more I" 
O'er 
Seas of tears, 
Throngh countless years 
Faith's star appears! 
Bombs bur6t! 

Now Love and Progress speak,— 
Shriek:— 
"The time is near 
When human ear 
Shall cease to hear 
Bombs burst!" 



THE GIANT CURSE. 

Peace would have smiled in '61, 
Had but the poople's will been done; 
Yes, had their voice been fairly heard, 
Rust would have gnawed ths hateful swords 
But demon Madness ruled the hour, 
Begot of Greed and Lust of Power. 
It was the few, of shameless cheek, 
Base robbers of the poor and weak, 
That they might count their chattel slaves, 
Forced millions to untimely graves. 
The Muse of History will write:— < 
"The rich man's war, the poor man s fight! 
Be it proclaimed, and understood, 
War never seeks the common good ! 
Her baneful name let men abhor: 
All sWvery is a state ot war : 
For tyranny's snstained by force: 
Proclaim it, War's the giant curse ! 
With soldiery all Europe swarms,— 
Four million sons of toil in arms ! 
O sons of toil, unite! unite! 
Throw down your arms ! refuse to lint I 
What helplese, and what hopeless things 
Without voo, are the raee oJ kings! 
But hark! a song of triumph hear,— 
Its joyful accents ring out clear : 
'Tie Labor voices now a cry 
That mounts exultant to the sky. 

A SONG OF LABOR. 

Labor will triumph, boys- no one can .dombt it, 
men; 
We axe all brothers, we children of toil: 
We will be slaves no more, loud let us shout it, 
then, 
We are God's freemen, we sons of the soil! 



(76) 



All will be joy and peace: 

Wars and oppressions cease, 
Since we will batcher our brothers no more : 

Now every wound we stanch, 

Hold out the olive branch 
To every toiler upon every shore ! 

Labor makes all the guns. Labor must handle 
them : 
Labo; mans all the ships on the high sea 3 : 
Why do we flgijt for kings? Why do we dandle 
them, 
Like mewling babies, upon our rough knees? 
How will the kings and lords 
Manag the aims and swords, 
When the bard-hauded, the ninety-and-nine, 
All of us break our ranks, 
Bowing the kings our thanks. 
Shout back: "VTe guns, diums and banners 
resign !" 

The world a republic, boys ! Grandly united, men, 

The millions are guided by love and not hate; 

We dwell in the suns hi ue of peac, all delighted 

then; 

No poor and no rich, and the meeki are the 

great ! 

Brothers, and working men, 
Give us your hand again! 
Now we are hippy, and ever shall be: — 
On to the Rhin;! \Ve say, 
"Prune now the vine we may; 
We plant and we dwell 'neath oar vine and.fig 
tree!" 

The land ie the people's, boys! -Railroad and 
telegraph- 
Giant monopoly yields up the ghost ! 
See, old king Gold is dead! loudly the] toilers 
laugh! 
Who now by labor will save up the most? 
Dead is King Alcohol, 
Poverty, crime and all ; 
No use for gibbets, for jails or police; 
Here Is lair play, my boys ■ 
Shout it and make a noise: 
Labor triumphant, the world is at peace! 

MOLOCH AND MAMMON. 

But patriots all, be on your guard; 
One kind of devil* go out hard, 
And Greed, and Tyranny, and War, 
Among this kind of devils are. 
The framers of our written law 
The danger to our peace foresaw. 
And early made provisien strong 
To guard against the- threatened wrong- 
Declared in language grandly plain 
That standing armies are our bane; 
They gnaw upon the nation's health; 
They b te and tear the Commonwealth. 
Despite of all our fathers said ; 
The serpent raises hiijh his head; 
An army ia equipped and paid, 
And "soldiering* 1 becomes a trade. 
" Militia,'" of our fathers' plan, 
Counts every able-bodied -nan; 
The people learned the nee of arms 
To gaard their families and farms, 
For treacherous Indians blind to law, 
Filled peaceful settlements wi;h awe. 
While we've the ballot and the sword, 
Wnose word is law ? The people's word ! 
But why have we arrayed to-day 
A host of soldiers under pay? 
Why do we now so violate 
The Constitution of eur State! 
When these hav« power to overawe 
The people, then the Sword is law! 
The " enemy hath scattered tares," 
Who for pretention makes l«ng prayers; 
But who is he? The millionaires! 
So ravenous for wealth and power, 
.E'en "widow'e houses they devour.'' 
These ghouls, let all just men contemn, 
As scorned by Christ of Bethlehem! 
The guilty lay awake all nii<bt. 
Quaking with terror and affright; 
Just so these heartless robbers quake, 
Fearing the people may awake 
To right their wrongs and vengance take; 



Therefore, they frame a tjrant law 
To keep the '■ dangerous class" in awe- 
Framed with a deep aud dark design 
For one to rule the ninety-nine. 
The master formerly was " lash" — 
Who would be master now? -King " Cash?" 
This king now speaks end says :— 

"My will 
Is that the people shall not drill ! 
Place 'Constitution'' on the shelf, 
Lest labor — wronged— protect herself; 
A sleek, select ' Praetorian Band," 
Shall be the guardians o! the land, 
To put down strikes, and charge and kill 
The starving working/men, at will ; 
Because, 'tis cle ir, the laboring m ss 
Is now become a ' dangerous class,' 
As were the blacks, when o'd John Brown 
At Harper's Ferry won renown ;— 
Had these beeu armed, 'ri-> plain, the yoke 
Of slavery at once had broke; 
We must have troops bold under pay 
To keep the laboring class at bay." 
Plain words are these -their meaning clear — 
May every f.eeman hark and hear! 
Above the people, now behold 
A class most insolent and bold; 
See L-'gislatures, b mght and sold! 
The railroad magnate spreads his tent 
Riy;ht in our ha! is of government; 
The b mking Syndica'es a god- 
That shakes hie locks aud gives the nod — 
From Saratoga thunders forth 
His mandates to the mundane earth; — 
The mass asleep ; their rights tbe sport 
Of Congress, President and Court 
So venal as would pir to shame 
E'en Arnold of unhappy fame ! 
Why, why asleep? The cruel strife 
Had almost quenched the nation's life; 
And who can wonder, at its close 
If tired nature sought repose? 
Reaction follows aetion sure, 
In all we do and all endure ; 
Now slimy reptiles noiseless creep 
And bleed, the giant in his sleep — 
But hark! Who speaks the warning word? 
Oh be the Patriot's warning heard! 
O giant, raise thy head and shake 
Thy unshorn locks- awaue ! awake! 

THE PATRIOT'S WARNING. 

Beware, beware 
The millionaire! 
He "all in all," puffed up with pride. 

The Constitution and the laws 
See, see him bound to override 
Making no pause I 

Beware, beware! 
The millionaire 
With tyrant hand struck Freedom down 

In her first home, in her first homel 
She sank and left but the renown 
Of Greece and Rom)! 

Beware, beware 
The millionaire! 
A deadly foe, a deadly foe 

To thee, O workingrnan, to thee, 
Will pause not till he overthrow 
Our Liberty! 

Beware, beware 
The millionaire! 
Ah, one by one our rightj are blown 

Blown to the wind, blown to the wind; 
Phiiis ines fill the Judges' throne, 
And Samson blind! 



CRUELTY IS TYRANNY. 

Four million chattel slaves released, 
Their cry of agony has ceased; 
It was a struggle that the men 
Who saw it would not see again — 
A victory for labor won ; 
But still the conflict must go on; 
Eternal vigilance will be 
Ever the price of liberty; 
For freedom is aot adamant, 



(77) 



But only a most tender plant 
That must be kept with watchful care 
Lest blight destroy or wintry air. 
Much has been done, much J s to do 
Before the promised land we view; 
Every form of cruelty 
Is a form of tyranny ; 
End cruelty of every form 
And Tyranny we thus disarm. 
When we have reached the tine confine 
Of freedom we hold man divine ; 
Then prisons change their rigid rules 
And are converted into schools; 
The gallows (that most foul disgrace 
Of nations and the human race) 
Will pass away, as has the cross, 
And no one ever mourn its loss. 
The aim of human law has been 
To kill the sinner, not the sin ; 
He that no sin has ever known 
May at the sinner cast a stone ; 
The ninety-nine upon safe ground, 
Seek for the one lost she p till found ; 
And when 'tis found gladly restore 
The wanderer to the told once more. 

sin's ANTIDOTE. 

The poison of the soul remove * 
By surest antidote— by love; 
'Tie love will melt the hardest heart, 
And force foul demons to depart— 
Lift up the fallen one — ret- tore 
Her to an upright walk once more. 
The magic power of love is seen, 
Rejoice, O Mary Magdalene ! 
Ten thousand doors now open wide 
To bring thee to the Saviour's side; 
Thousands of thousands seek thy good, 
The universal Sisterhood. 
Mankind a true fraternity, 
Humanity one family, 
Benighted one, abandon thee I 
No never, while still glows the gem 
Of night, the Star of Bethlehem; 
No never, while the Sun divine 
Of Righteousness, our day shall shine ;— 
O Son of God and Son of Man ! 
No inspiration's higher than 
Thy life! Immortal Energy, 
Invincible as Deity ! 
Unfolding lovely leaf and bloom, 
Enshrined in emblematic tomb— 
The leat of hope, the bloom of low, 
Graft from the Tree of Life above. 
No written message didst thou pen, 
But emphasized one word to men; 
Thy life the emphasis; the word 
(Above the written one preferred ) 
The word is "Love," which prophets saw 
Dethrone, (fulfill) the bloody "Law;" 
Now, only the command remains, 
(It all the written law contains, 
Makes every man on earth our brother,) 
The great command, -'Love one another I" 
Love brethren only, what reward? 
He loves all men who loves the Lord. 
Bright on the banner of our cause, 
Read, "Love engraven on the laws! 1 ' 
The Sermon on the Mount behold, 
In letters brighter far than gold, 
Made, by the people's stern command, 
The ''Constitution" of the land. 
It must be written in our laws, 
' No slavery for any cause !" 
See convict slaves farmed out to Craig, 
While their families starve or beg. 
Pay them wages— fair return 
For all they do and all they earn; 
Deprived of liberty— confined— 
They can no longer harm mankind ; 
Now let us point them to the road 
That leads to righteousness and God. 
The cause of sin must be assigned 
To wrong ideas in the mind- 
Remove the wrong ideas and Saul 
At once is transformed into Paul ; 
But Cruelty cannot remove 
The wrong ideas--only Love I 
A physician for the sick ; 



Tender nursing for the weak. 

Man never falls so low, that he 

May not arise to dignity— 

An heir of God ; joint heir with Christ 

Who for our weal was sacrificed. 

THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 

Where lies the blame for all the crime 

That so disgraces now our time? 

It rests upon society — 

It rests upon community; 

Community owes every child 

An education that will build, 

Into the edifice designed, 

The structure of the teart and mind ; 
" Ab bent the twig the tree's inclined.'* 

Those slums of poverty and greed 

(The pestilential cities) breed 

Infection in the atmosphere, 

That grows more deadly year by year; 
" Street Arabs" never out ©f sight; 

Goods-boxes shelter them at night, 

Misfortune's "Children in the Wood,'* 

Dying of cold and want of food, 

Oh, gather in the little ones, 

Nor feed them serpents and hard stones I 

See now the Priest pass by in pride ; 

The Levite on the other side, — 

Who is the tender-hearted man? 

Who is the good Samaritan? 

Say 'tis the State— the Commonwealth- 
Shall give them food— restore their health; 

Shall loldthem in her sheltering arms; 

Her roof protect from angry storms I 

Time hurries by; these little ones 

Grow up to be her stalwart sons ; 

Support her when her locks are gray— 

Her love with gratitude repay 1 

THE OLD AND THE NEW. 

The Old is dead ! Gladly we view 

The rising glory of the New ! 

Now when Zone answers Zone 

By telegraph and telephone, 

And the Desert hears the scream 

Of the monster belching steam, 

It is a fact all must perceive— 

Perceiving it all must believe » 

The methods that bore fruit of yore 

Will blossom in this world no more. 

A ukase Progress has decreed, 

From which mankind cannot recede, 

That * In an age when Church and State 

Are wide divorced and separate, 

The State must not attempt to shirk, 

But carry on the mighty work 

The Church so graciously began, 

To mitigate the woes of man." 

The •' Sisters"— none but thee, good Lord*. 

Can give them adequate reward 1 

The foundling's and the orphan's shield; 

The soldier's bleeding from the field. 

NATURAL BIGHTS. 

Old means no longer adequate, 
It has devolved upon the State, 
With "Charity" kept oat of sight, 
To give the helpless "natural right." 
Man's natural rights ! With pointed dart 
Engrave It on the hardest heart, 
And every freeman, too, give ear, 
And he that is the deafest hear : 
If law and justice were the same, 
Then law could have no other aim 
Than to enforce these rights and give 
Their benefits to all that live; 
And when so done, as God designed, 
The State becomes "eyes to the blind, 
Feet to the lame" — the helpless all 
Upon her as a mother call- 
Are by her fondled and caressed, 
As infants nourished at the breast. 
To criminals are given, too, 
The right of reclamation due: 
Tne State is arbiter of both 
Their mental and their moral growth. 



(78 ) 



DASH DOWN THE CUP. 

All pains and penalties have failed, 
Since Jeeu.8 to the cross was nailed, 
Failed signally. The end designed 
They never reach — the victim's mind; 
Nor can the point be put too strong, 
That pains and penalties are wrong. 
Can we, by freezing, soften wax? 
Or split the ocean with an a;e? 
Paine, even of the least degree, 
Proclaim existing Tyranny; 
And fines are only robbery: 
A eot before the Court is led 
And fined -his children cry for bread; 
The law can break thd drunkard's cup, 
And thus can make him give it up ; 
Destroy the rattlesnake, and then 
'Twill surely never bite again! 
What deviJ, "Christian England, say, 
Has drugged, with opium, Cathay? 
Put down the trade! Oh, burning shame! 
' Out, damned spot" upon thy name! 
Pile opium in heaps around, 
And opium eaters will abound; 
While alcohol in rivers runs, 
Columbia mourns her perished sons! 
O Alcohol ! Thou demon fell, 



Ai ever left the court of Hell ! 

May all the Wrath, and Hate, and Scorn, 

That ever were conceived and born, 

Be armed against thy hateful life, 

With sharpened spear and poisoned knife, 

And may thy cruel heart soon feel 

The vengeful bite oi hungry steel! 

woman's voicb. 

But woman! When thy voice is heard, 
The fiend will vanish at a word- 
It will be heard! At thy command 
See now the demon quit the land! 
And e'en the army's guns and noise 
Are silenced by thy gentle voice: 
Not in tempest, not in flame, 
Not in earthquake -bat there came 
ToHoreb where Elijah stood 
44 A still small voice"— the voice of God! 

FAREWELL.. 

But lo! the sun is risen high 
And shines resplendent in the sky; 
Thy Poet's blessing with thee dwell, 
O lovely Stream! and now farewell. 

Mat, 1881.. 



ESSAY VIII.— THE STKONG AND THE WEAK. 



RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED TO ALL LOVERS OF TRUTH AND FREEDOM THE 

WORLD OVER. 

(Spoken at Humboldt, Iowa, October 5, 1875.) 

"Bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.'' 1 — Galatians, vi-2. 

" We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak."— Romans, xy-1. 

"Aud all that believed had all things common and sold their possessions and goods 
and parted them to all men as every man had need."— Acts n-44,45. 



W 



I. Truth and Love. 

To be true to truth has been the para- 
mount object and endeavor of my life. 
I have ever belieyed that to follow my 
earnest convictions of truth and duty is 
the only way of safety, and that out- 
side of this path is the only dangerous 
course. I have spoken what I believed 
to be truth, no matter how unpopular 
the word spoken might be at the time of 
its utterance. "Take no thought of the 
morrow, but follow truth and duty/' is 
the precept and example of the Master, 
the grandeur of whose teachings and life 
has dawned on me to such a degree of 
brightness as to fill me with unspeakable 
wonder. How I rejoice that the name 
of Jesus is spoken with reverence by so 
many millions— even by those who are 
far from fully comprehending the sublime 
meaning of His words and life. Man- 
kind will reach this comprehension some 
day. Then will result the complete ex- 
tinguishment of legalized cruelty; and 
the complete extinguishment of poverty 
and oppression. The supremacy of the 
law of love has been acknowledged by 
the enlightened of all ages and nations. It 
was the foremost endeavor of Jesus to 



emphasize this law. Wherever the Jewish 
law appeared to antagonize love he said 
of it unmistakably, "Nay." It was his 
purpose to dethrone hate aud enthrone 
love as the controlling power over indi- 
viduals, communities and nations. It 
was this idea that so awakened the en- 
thusiasm of the early Christians. This 
beautiful love — the "fulfilling of the law" 
of Moses — was not just a cold, metaphys- 
ical dogma, but an efficient law of every 
day life, to the primitive disciples. 
"Whoso," said they, "hath this world's 
goods and beholdeth his brocher in need 
and shutteth up his compassion from 
him, how doth the love of God abide in 
him?" "All that believed," who had 
walked with the Lord and listened to his 
gracious words, "were together and 
had all things common, and sold their 
possessions and goods and parted them 
to all men as every man had need." 

Here do we see the literal interpreta- 
tion of the meaning of Christian love, as 
understood and practiced by the im- 
mediate followers of Jesus. They gave 
to it this interpretation as the logical , 
outcome of their religious belief. And 
precisely the same interpretation must 
follow universally the christian belief, 



(79) 



when mankind have become his true dis- 
ciples, as those unmistakably were who 
received the baptism of the Holy Ghost 
on the day of Pentecost. Here we see 
Christianity put into institution, as it 
will yet be ciystalized universally in law 
a/nd government, placing upon the broad 
shoulders of the strong the burden of the 
infirmities of the weak. 

II. Practical Christianity. 

Except in literature, and as a senti- 
ment in the hearts of the common peo- 
ple, Christianity has very little actual 
foothold in this" yet pagan world. Out- 
side of benertcient institutions that 
assure the equality of men andthejabro- 
gation of want, suffering and cruelty, 
Christianity can only be sentimental — it 
must be practical to be genuine and real. 
We may see how nearly the governing 
powers of church and state (not the peo- 
ple; for the people nowhere fully govern) 
are christian, by observing how nearly the 
organized governments of Christendom 
(church and state) are like the christian 
community instituted over eighteen 
hundred years ago, in providing for the 
common welfare. Assuredly the institu- 
tions and governments of Christendom, 
both church and state, are pagan and 
not christian, and they will continue to 
be so until the common people who 
"hear gladly" the words of Jesus, abso- 
lutely rule in both. To the degree of ap- 
proximation toward absolute control of 
governments by the people (men and 
women) wilt the governments be christian 
and not pagan. Where the people have 
crystalized in government and law their 
absolute will, christian government 
exists, and there alone. Such govern- 
ment is as careful of the rights, well-being 
and happiness of each individual as was 
the primitive christian society, that had 
'■ all things common." 

Government of the few over the many 
is maintained by coercion and robbery. 
What is the British government to-day 
but the strong preying upon the weak ? 
following right along the cruel pathway 
of ancient, pagan Rome. How muck 
better off is Ireland to-day under 
"British rule than was aincient Britain 
under the Caesars? What is England's 
treatment of India but barbarism itself? 

England, where is thy boasted Christ- 
ian civilization? The ninety-and-nine of 
thy subjects are slaves to the one! If 
the ninety-and-nine controlled, then 
would Ireland be emancipated, and 
India would experience the kindly treat- 
ment from England that Japan does 
from the United States. The United 
States is not an oppressor. Why? Be- 
cause the people of America rule to a 
greater degree than do the people of any 
other country on earth— and the voice 
of a christian people is the voice of love 
—•the voice of God. 



III. The Avarice of the Few. 



All that fhe world now needs in order 
to be emancipated from the thrall of 
pagan hate and selfish cruelty and greed 
is the overthrow of all arbitrary govern- 
ments and the inauguration of demo- 
cratic rule universally. Oppression will 
then die and the strong will at once (as 
they ought) "bear the infirmities of the 
weak," instead of preying upon and de- 
vouring the substance of the poor and 
defenseless. 

What is the cause of poverty, tyranny, 
slavery and the conquest of peaceful and 
happy nations with the sword of bar- 
barity? The avarice of the few is the 
cause. Where avarice has gained the 
mastery over the minds and hearts of 
the controlling few (and avarice always 
does hold the mastery where the few 
control) no appeal to justice or right is 
heeded. The rulers are alwavs despoil- 
ers, robbers and tyrants where the few 
rule. Avarice is the Satan that must be 
chained, and to chain him the many 
must govern and not be the governed. 
All men and all women must declare 
their independence of the sordid few. 
The thoughts and actions of mankind 
will then How in the broad channel of 
"good will toward men." Avarice never 
controlled the majority of a christian 
people. In every christian community on 
earth, where the community speaks, ex- 
alted motives alone move to action. The 
wicked few have reason still to " fear the 
people." 

IV. Christian Love. 

No scoffer has ever assailed the divine 
doctrine of christian love. Even Robert 
G. Ingersoll has never found fault with 
it. The common people hear Colonel 
Ingersoll gladly only to the extent of his 
advocacy of love and good will toward 
men, women and little children — only to 
the extent that he echoes, repeats, ex- 
emplifies and enforces, in his words and 
acts, the kindly teachings and example 
of Jesus, and he does this to a great ex- 
tent. He would, it seems, delude himself 
into the belief that he has stepped clean 
outside of Christianity in the direction 
of good will toward men, which is impos- 
sible to do.* On the contrary, not only 
all of Christianity but "all the law and 
the prophets" are comprehended in the 
words " love thy neighbor as thyself." 

But in defining his "God," Colonel 



* "One article of our faith then is— that Christ 
is the first begotten of God, and we have already 
proved him to be the very Logos, (or Universal 
Reason), of which mankind are all partakers, 
and therefore, those who live according to the 
Logos are Christians, notwithstanding they may 
pass with yon for Atheists. Such among the 
Greeks were Socrates and Herakleitos, and the 
Use; and such among the Barbarians were Abri- 
ham and Ananias, and Azarias."— Justin the 
Martyr, (who lived within a century of Christ 
and who was the first Christian writer after Paul, 
whose works have come down to ue). 



(80) 



Ingersoll draws a picture, paints a por- 
trait of a being, by a false personification 
of beneficent Nature, more heartless, 
and indifferent to the cry of woe than 
the annals of pagan literature anywhere 
show, and compared with which the 
God of Moses is as the Good Samaritan 
compared with the Friest and the Levite. 
Thor and Odin of the Arctic North do 
not come up to Colonel Ingersoll's "God" 
in frigidity. And to give more emphasis 
to the cruel aspect of his "deity," he 
even places it in the feminine gender,— 
a terrible Medusa. In his lecture entitled 
"The Gods," the great Apostle of modern 
Atheism, says : 

"My God is Nature, which, without 
passion and' without intention, forms, 
transforms and re- transforms forever. 
She neither weeps nor rejoices. She pro- 
duces man without purpose and obliter- 
ates him without regret. She knows no 
distinction between the beneficent and 
the hurtful. Poison and nutrition, pain 
and joy, life and death, smiles and tears 
are alike to her."* 

Yet Colonel Ingersoll anathematizes 
the God of Moses for inhumanity — 
" Consistency, thou art a jewel." 

"The God of Jesus," says Renan, "is 
not the hateful master that kills us 
when he pleases, damns us when he 
pleases. He is our father. We hear him 
when we listen to a low voice within 
which says ' Father.' He is the God of. 
humanity." 

Still, in spite of what is said by Colonel 
Ingersoll himself to the contrary, I must 
believe and insist that his God is love, 
as is the God of Paul, and as is the God 
of every enlightened mind (his not ex- 
cepted) the world over. The enlightened 
mind must lookonlove as supreme — and 
that which the mind holds to be supreme 
is to that mind essentially God— who is 
otherwise undefinable.. "God is love." 
This is as far as human language can go 
in defining deity. I worship the Infinite 
Love. So does Colonel Ingersoll, and so 
does every human soul. Reason can 
rise no higher than to acknowledge love 
to be supreme. Man can become no bet- 
ter than to live an exemplification of 
love- as Jesus did and as Colonel Inger- 
soll is desirous of doing, I dare say. / 

V. The Light of Men. 

It is said of the great Jefferson that 
the distinction which he liked to draw, 
between the lessons of heathen philoso- 
phy and those of Jesus, was "that the 
former had for their object to teach man 
to take care of his own happiness, whilst 

* The rainbow in the cloud is the faith that 
God is net only powerful, but good; that the 
forces of nature are, on the whole, not cruel, but 
benignant; that the true state of mankiud is 
not to be at war with each other in the struggle 
for existence, but joined in offices of mutual 
helpfulness and development.— Rev. Samuel J. 
Barrows. 
6 



the latter turned his thoughts to the 
happiness of others." "The moral doc- 
trines of Jesus Christ," he adds, "went 
far beyond those of the philosophers in, 
inculcating universal philanthropy, not 
only to kindred and friends, neighbors 
and countrymen, but to all mankind, 
gathering all into one family under the 
bonds of love, charity, peace, common; 
wants and common aids." And the Rev- 
olutionary patriot and christian phil- 
anthropist, Thomas Paine, declares, in 
his Age of Reason: "Nothing that is 
here said can apply with the most dis- 
tant disrespect to the real character of 
Jesus Christ. * * * The morality 
that he preached and practiced was of 
the most benevolent kind. It has not 
been exceeded by any. He preached 
most excellent morality and the equality 
of men."* 



* David Frederick Strauss, in his essay "Ver- 
gangliches und Bleibendes in Christenthum, 1 ' 
says: "He (Jesus) represents in the religious 
sphere the highest point, beyond whom pos- 
terity cannot go— yea, whom it cannot equal—in- 
asmuch as every one who hereafter should climb 
the same hight could only ao it with the help of 
Jesus, who first attained it. As little as human- 
ity will ever be without religion, as little will it 
be without Christ; for to have religion without 
Christ would be as absurd as to enjoy poetry 
without regard to Homer and Shakespeare. He 
remains the highest model of religion within the 
reach of our thought, and no perfect piety ia 
possible without his presence in the heart.' 1 

John Stuart Mill, in his '"Three Essays on Re- 
ligion," says, "Religion cannot be said to have 
made a bad choice in pitching upon this man as 
the ideal representative and guide of humanity, 
nor even now would it be easy even for an unbe- 
liever to find a better translation of the rule of 
virtue from the abstract to the concrete than to 
endeavor so to live that Christ would approve 
our life." 

Here is what Ernest Renan says in his "Life of 
Jesus:" "This subline person, who each day 
still presides over the destinies of the world, we 
may call divine, not in the sense that Jesus ab- 
sorbed all divinity but in the sense that Jesus is 
that individual who has caused his species to 
make the greatest advance toward the divine. In 
him is condensed all that is good and lofty in 
our nature. Whatever may be the surprises of 
the future. Jesus will never be surpassed. His 
worhsip will grow young without ceasing; his le- 
gend will call forth tear's without end; his suf- 
fering will melt ihe noblest heart ; and all ages 
will proclaim that among the sons of men there 
is none born (jreat^r t^nn Jesus. He cannot be- 
long exclusive y to in. se who call themselves 
discipies. He is the common honor of all who 
bear a human heaat. His glory consists not in 
being Danished from history; we render him 
truer worship by showing that all history is in* 
comprehensible without him." 

Theodore Parker says: "He united in himself 
the sublimest precepts and divinest practices,, 
and proclaimed a doctrine beautiful as the light, 
sublime as heaven, and true as God." 

Jean Paul Richter says: '-He is the purest 
among the mighty, and the mightiest among the 
pure." 

Goethe calls him "the divine man" and "the 
holy one." 

Thomas Carlyle calk his life a "perfect ideal 
poem 1 ' and his person "the greatest of all 
heroes." 

And here is what Robert G. Ingersoll says of 
Christ in the North American Review of 
November, 1881: "For the man Christ— for the 
reformer who loved his fellow men— for the man. 
who believed in an infinite father who would 
shield the innocent and protect the just; for the 



(81) 



The essential Christian idea is devo- 
tion to the welfare of others and forget- 
fulness of self. The manifest tendency 
of this idea is toward the fraternal uni- 
fication of the family of man. The prac- 
tical political result will be the establish- 
ment of the United States of the World. 
The only question to be answered, that 
the world may become one loving Chris- 
tian Family, is how may love be made 
the superior law of all institutions, in- 
cluding churches, states and nations? 
To the solution of this one supreme 
question all the thought and effort of 
every individual of mankind should be 
constantly directed. The people will, I 
maintain, work out this problem the 
moment they gain the mastery. The 
people of this world are ready now to 
undertake the glorious task— are ready 
now to vote an amendment to the Con- 
stitutions of all organized governments, 
making the sermon of Jesus on the 
Mount the supreme law of every church, 
state and nation on the earth, thus ab- 
rogating forever sectarian hate, war and 
barbarity — thus instituting universal 
equality of rights and privileges for all 
men, women and children, — gathering all 
the helpless and destitute into pleasant 
homes— the commonwealth becoming 
the father of the fatherless and the 
widow's protector— the helper of the 
helpless and the friend of the friendless 
outcasts. 

VI. Good Things to Come, 

I do love these grand ideas ; and oh, 
what an epic poem is embodied in the 
thought of the United States of the 
World ; — all nations confederated to- 
gether under one starry flag of Christian 
brotherhood and sisterhood and declar- 
ing "the strong shall bear the infirmities 
of the weak"— be eyes to the blind, and 
feet to the lame ! 

Yes, I believe it true of Christianity that 
so far was it in advance of human de- 
velopment at the time of the descent of 
Jesus upon our planet that for almost 
nineteen hundred years it has existed as 
a prophesy or promise of "good things to 
come," understood by only a few superior 
minds— mankind generally being unpre- 
pared for the apprehension of the as- 
tounding idea of a universal Christian 
community, like that organized by the 



primitive Christians of Jerusalem, in? 
which the law of love was paramount. 

But mankind have wonderfully ad- 
vanced since the day that Jesus yielded 
up his life on Calvary. The "little lump 
of leaven" has almost done its allotted 
work. The world is now ready for the 
Second Coming of the Son of God. The 
present iron policy of the Disraelis and 
the Bismarcks of the nations is but 
a continuance down into this Christian 
age, of the barbarity of ancient Greece, 
Komo and Carthage — a barbarity based 
on ideas long since given up as heathen- 
ish by the masses of mankind, and are 
as far removed from the popular appro- 
val as was chattel slavery twenty-five 
years ago; and their voice that destroy- 
ed chattel slavery will wipe out war, 
conquest, coercion, wage slavery and 
every other barbarous institution or 
thing not in harmony with the now well- 
understood and universally approved 
principles of Christianity, and will in- 
stitute co-operative industry, and other 
reforms, insuring to the workers all 
the fruits of their labor, until finally 
shall be realized the Cosmopolitan Com- 
munity, or Universal Christian Common- 
wealth which Isaiah and the Roman 
Sibyl foresaw, and of which the pente- 
costal community was the epitome. 
"Behold all things shall become new! 1 ' 

Society has outgrown its old garments. 
I see man coming up step by step from 
the cave period, when he wielded the 
rude club and stone implement, to the 
present age, in which time and space are 
annihilated, and production has "been so 
increased by machinery that want and 
suffering need never again be known on 
earth. There is but one thing more re- 
quired to complete the emancipation 
and happiness of mankind and the 
Christianization of the world, and that 
is the entire abrogation of autocracy 
and plutocracy and the institution of' 
democratic governments universally, — 
guaranteeing the equality of men, as 
ordained by Jesus and exemplified by 
the Church of Jerusalem when "all that 
believed had all things common, and 
sold their possessions and goods and 
parted them to all men are very man 
had need." And to this sublime hight 
may all human governments speedily 
attain, is my prayer of undoubting 
faith ! 



ESSAY IX.— SOCIETY AND^ CHILDREN. 1 

( Part of a discourse spoken at Humboldt, Iowa, October 3, 1875.) 

"And he took the little children up in his arms, put his hands upon them and' 
blessed them."— Mark, x-16. 



I. The Christ Spirit. 

May we not say truly that the present 

martyr who expect 'd to be rescued from the 
cros* ; lor that, yreat and suffering man, mistaken 
though he whs, I have the highest admiration 
and respec ■." c 



progress of the world is the outgrowth 
of selfishness— of the struggle for wealth 
of enterprise? No I think we may not 
truly say so. But on the contrary, the 
real good is, I believe, the outgrowth of; 
what is denominated "(christian work" 



( 82 ) 



— the missionary spirit— the desire to 
help humanity— to save men from ignor- 
ance, vice, povert.v and degradation — out 
of sympathy and love for our fellow men 
—the Christ spirit. At present there is 
individual effort in this direction, of 
isolated philanthropists, and associated 
effort of church and lodge. But soon 
it will be the great work of the state to 
do this office of charity and love. Even 
petty life insurance companies will then 
cease to be, for the state will be the in- 
surer and every individual of the State 
the insured. The people will act to- 
gether (through law and institution) in 
all things for the general good. The 
state will become a fraternity . Charity 
will be so organized and carried out that 
the helpless shall be surrounded with the 
sunshine of earth life. No little feeble 
Five Points Mission for destitute child- 
ren, supported by private charity, will 
struggle for existence; but healthy es- 
tablishments, supported by the bounty 
of the commonwealth, will abound. The 
state is able to institute model homes 
for orphan children, more pleasant and 
attractive than even the homes and 
firesides of the wealthy of to-day, so 
that parents may do well to visit them 
to learn how to make the parental 
home attractive to their little ones."* 

How can our homes be made most 
pleasant? By their being built with an 
eye to one thing only — the gratification 
of children. Too often the family home 
is built to gratify vanity to make dis- 
play of finery— anything but pleasure 
grounds for children. They are prisons 
rather. 

Most earnest thought and persevering 
endeavor should be directed both to the 
comfort and delight of children, and to 
their education. When mankind go to 
work in real earnest to make the little 
children happy the whole year round, 
what a pleasant world we shall have. 
Make every day Christmas for all the 
little ones of earth! If we only took the 
little children, as the state can do, all 
the destitute and orphans— took them 
in our arms and blessed them with 
happy homes of comfort— laying our 
hands on their heads as true saviours, 
oh, would it not be well ! The world be- 
longs to the children. We hold it only 
in trust for the coming generations. Let 
us give them a blessed portion of it 

*In advocating the common care of the little 
ones, who are left to battle for existence without 
parental care, I do not wish to be understood to 
gay that homes in good families would not be pref- 
erable to public estab.iehments, like the one at 
the Five Points, New York, though nothing 
is more beautiful than was the appearance of the 
Five Points' Mission Home and School in 1888. 
I had the pleasure ol visiting that home in Sep- 
tember of that year, and great was my joy to see 
so many happy children there assembled and the 
little ones eo tenderly cared for. May the blessing 
of Almighty God go with those who have under- 
taken to carry forward this most truly christian 
•work. 



while they are helpless and need it. One 
child has as God-given a right to just as 
much of this world's goods as another. 
It has a right to all that is necessary to 
make it comfortable. Don't you, great, 
strong man, withhold from the infants 
their right. God never gave the world 
to a few. Don't grasp by force more 
than your share and hold it up out of 
the reach of the babes. Don't let the 
children want. 

No man owns, in fact, more than he 
can properly use, though he may con- 
trol more, while little children are starv- 
ving around him. We collect together 
vast sums; we spread our claims of 
ownership over vast areas of earth's 
surface; but we really own only what 
we can eat, drink and wear. Some one 
else has to use the balance or it must go 
to waste. Even our bed and the roof 
that shelters us are ours for a few days 
only, and the ground then claims our 
selfish bodies and our bones and flesh 
rot. How little does each one absolutely 
own ! He draws from a small compass 
of earth his real subsistence. Man's 
essential wants are few and easily satis- 
fied. Even Alexander the Great could 
drink and eat no more than other indi- 
vidual men, and it took no more woolen 
to clothe him, so that his ownership of 
more was a delusion. No man is wealthy. 
The man who has a sufficiency of whole- 
some food to eat, a comfortable bed to 
sleep on, a shelter that keeps off the cold 
and damp, a cheerful fire to sit by in the 
winter, adequate clothing for his bodily 
comfort, leisure for mental culture, lov- 
ing companions and friends, and a wife 
and happy children around him, is as rich 
as any mortal can be. But if he is selfish 
and wrapped up in love of money, God 
pity him. 

III. The Milk of Human Kindness. 

Mind has so far triumphed over mat- 
ter that men produce a superabundance 
of products now without great physical 
toil. If not to heaping up of superfluous 
riches for vain show, to what may we 
devote our attention ? To making lit- 
tle children happy. How may this be 
done ? By giving the surplus wealth pro- 
duced by machinery to them. How may 
we give it to them ? By building pleas- 
ant homes for all the destitute and or- 
phans ; by establishing schools for them; 
by gathering them together and nour- 
ishing them with the milk of human 
kindness. There is room enough in this 
world for billions more of people than 
dwell now on its surface. Make it good 
for children to be born. Let this be the 
aim of all our laws. Let our world be 
made a most beautiful world to all 
children. God has indeed made it beau- 
tiful, if man by selfishness did not mar 
it. Let every child that comes into this 
world feel that he is the peer of king's 
sons. Never let him be humiliated by 



( S3) 



E 



the idea that he is in any way beneath 
any other child that ever lived. Ought 
children to answer for the sins of their 
parents? It is enough to answer for 
one's own sins. Spare the little child. 
Lift it up. Make it a prince or princess 
among men and women. 

How beautiful this world might be if 
selfishness were only banished from it. 
It would be divided up into small and 
pretty homesteads for all. What do I 
want of a thousand acres of land? I 
might make one use of it— I might corn- 
Del others to be my servants, to labor 
or my comfort and ease— to give their 
toil and the fruits of their toil to me 
that I may be idle. It is better for me 
to work a portion of the time. It is 
better for me to earn my own living. I 
will have better health if I go into the 
field and plow a reasonable portion of 
the time. But I make other men work 
louger than they ought that I may be 
idle and spend my time and the hard 
earnings of other's toil in luxurious liv- 
ing. Thus I become enervated in mind 
and body. My selfishness overreaches 
itself. 

Wealth is a tremendous power. In 
the hands of bad men it is a power for 
evil. As yet tl: ere are a great many bad 
men in the world, and bad men do some- 
times get rich. These scruple not to go 
into the hails of legislation to offer 



bribes to representatives of the people. 

Wealth in the hands of good men is a 
power for good. Like Gerrit Smith these 
hold their lands and money in trust for 
the good of others. They use their 
means as Jesus would have used wealth 
had he possessed it. He would have 
sold all and given it to the deserving poor. 
"How hardly shall they that have 
riches enter into the Kingdom of God" 
— is a text seldom quoted from the 
modern pulpit; and the next one is like 
unto it, viz? ;< It is easier for a camel to 
go through the needle's eye than for a rich 
man to enter into the Kingdom of God." 

But a good man never considers him- 
self rich. Self-abnegation is his religion. 
He may have title deeds to vast areas 
of the earth's surface; but he says 
"these lands, and all else that I control 
are mine only in trust for the good of 
mankind." He would rejoice to know 
just how to devote his property that it 
might confer the highest benefit on his 
country and countrymen and the world 
of mankind at large. 

The man does the best for himself that 
yields up the most for the general good. 
He is the happiest man that adds most 
to the happiness of others, No man can 
increase his own personal welfare by 
sacrificing the welfare of others. He 
that lives for other's good and dies for 
other's good is the truly happy man. 



PASTOKALS OF THE PKAIRIES. 
PART SECOND. 

SONNETS TO MY BELOVED WIFE. * 



I. 
«* Forsake thee not, no never, Jennie, meek; 

Forsake thee not; 1 love thee more and more, 1 ' 

So have I sung through years beyond a score. 
The wild-rose bloom still reddens thy fair cheek, 
Thou art my wealth, beyond what tongue can 
speak, 

Beyond all measure. Millionaires are poor, 

For I'd not yield thy love for ail their store, 
My joy with thee for all they own or seek. 
O happy marriage! blissful, blissful atate! 

God is my shepherd, in green pastures le d, 
He gave to me— O gift most fortunate!— 

Gave thee to me: and "ye are one," He said- 
Bestowed on me a glorious estate — 

Not lands or money, but thy love instead. 

II. 
What are they worth (broad lands and stocks 
and gold) 

Compared with happiness we, darling, find 

In our plain cabin— happiness of mind. 
Trusting in God, His goodness we behold, — 
Behold in bread and blessings manifold,— 

And to His providence we are resigned; 

For e'en His harshest chastenings are kind— 
Our minds into the Saviour's likeness mould, 
Thev bind our souls together closer still, 

And teach me how to prize a God given friend. 
O dearest friend! they cause us to 'fulfill 

Oar mutual duties till we reach life's end. 
Prosperity does eacn d friendship kill ; 

Adversity leads kindred souls to blend. 

III. 
O love, my inmost thoughts I give to thee, 
Nor hast thou heard me of my lot complain; 



I seek for wealth, the wealth that will remain 
Beyond this life, through vast eternity; 
Despise those things that perishable be,— 

And I shall clasp thee in my arms again 

When we have left behind this wcrld profane; 
Then all I value shall come back to me. 
I have assurance of a future life, — 

I have assurance that the good endures; 
The husband there shall greet his darling wife ; 

There shall we meet the friends the grave ob- 
scures; 
A better world succeeds this world of strife — 

Are these hopes vain? not so my faith assures. 

IV. 

In retrospection of the past I see 

How thou hast been my ever-constant friend, 

And all thy ways, my darling, I commend; 
Thy love, how glowing in adversity, 
And how .unfailing i n prosperity ; 

I see its heavenly light through life extend; 

I see it brighter grow until the end- 
Yea, thou art true, dear wife, as Deity. 
Did not thy light and warmth illume my way, 

Cold, cold despair my soul would petrify; 
But thou revivest my drooping heart each day: 

Let hope decay, and I ripining die-- 
All else Adversity hath swept away, 

E'en my good name the wicked vilify. 

V. 

Now let me weigh, compare and truly tell 
What is the choicest of the gifts of God, 
The glory of the earth whereon we plod, 

A gift with which there is none parallel, 

Of happiness it is the citadel; 
Who have this boon are grandly clothed and 
shod; 



( 54 ) 



But 'tis a boon cynics call rare and odd: 
Connubial love! no joy ran it excel. 
Always pellucid is tby love, O wie, 

Like limpid waters bubbling from the ground. 
It elnked my thirst when eweet, joyous youn°- 
life 

Went dancing through my veins with glad re- 
bound, 
But now I drink, faint, wounded Irom the s f rife, 

I quaff thy gushing love witu joy profound. 

VI. 

It will be known in distant days to come, 
(For 'tis a deed that merits endless fame, 
Compared with it the warrior's meed is tame) 

That thou established, darling, a true home, 

And like the immortal matron, prid« of Rome 
When Rome was proudest-[Cornelia her name] 
Thy jewels were thy childien. 'Tie thy aim 

To do tue good that's near. Encomium 

The highest that the world can give, will be 
That thou hast brougr.t up children to repeat 

Thy life of righteousness— to foil w thee— 
To keep along the path made by thy feet, 

Thy blessed feet that carried thee to me 
To make my earthly happiness complete! 

VII. 

Who looks abroad while glow the prairies wild 
Vv ith lilies and a thousand floral stars, 
Set s beauty as when Paradise unbars 
Her g lden gates to show where und filed 
Walked Eve before the serpent-fiend beguiled 
Her trustful into evil that still mars 
The souls of all mankind with ugly Bears 
Bt aled only since was born the wondrous child, 
And angels sang the choral hymn above. 
And shepherds listened witn supreme delight.— 



Thv gentle voice and blameles* life, my dove, 
How beautiful, both to my ear and sight! 

More ravishing than angel's hymn, O love! 
More beautiful than prairie-lilies bright. 

VIII. 

Now let me clasp thee in one long embrace: 
I love thee, darling, and we twain are one, 
Not for a day, but till descends the sun 

To rise no more uoon Creation's face. 

Till pafs from Earth the last of human race, 
And all the shining orbs their course have run ; 
Then will our raptures have but just begun, 

Our joys unbounded as the boundless space! 

Through vaet immensity our course we speed; 
We^rise, advance, learn, know, advancing still, 

Onward and upward nothing to impede- 
Where Beatr ce made D nte's heart to thrill 

I drink enraptured bright, ambrosial mead — 
I drink thy love, but never drink nry fill. 

IX. 

Sweet mother of my children! thou shalt yet 

Receive bright token of my high regard; 

O could I sing as sang the Teian bard, 
Thy worthy name the world cou d ne'er forget. 
Shine on bright name ! shine on and r ever set ! 

Glow like the firmament— the million-starred, 

And great Orion keeping watch and ward 
Upon Creation's midmost parapet!- - 

These grateful thoughts rejoice, O love, my 
mind, 

These glowing words escape unbid my lips, 
I owe thee millions, helpmeet ever kind, 

If paid In gold 'twould sink old England's 
ships; 
To do the impossible was ne'er designed, 

Then love for love, nor love let love eclipse. 
Aug, 28, 1885. 



ESSAY X.— BREAD AND STONES. 



RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED TO WILLIAM LARABEE, GOVERNOR OF IOWA. 

" If a son shall ask bread of any one of you that is a father will he give him a 
stone?— or, if he ask a fish, will he, tor a fish, give him a* serpent?— or, it he ask an 
egg, will he give him a scorpion?' 1 — Mathew 7-10. 



I. Industrial Homes. 

Iowa has two " Industrial Homes" es- 
tablished by law and supported by the 
State— one for boys and one for girls. 
The amount of money appropriated for 
the support of the girls' Home is two 
dollars and fifty cents per week for each 
child admitted. This pittance must pay 
the following expenses in full : Food and 
clothing for each child ; doctor's bills for 
each ; fuel for four large buildings of 
many apartments and scores of rooms ; 
the salary of the superintendent— over 
twenty-one dollars per week — and his 
traveling expenses, including hotel bills; 
the salaries of seven teachers, five dol- 
lars per week ; the salaries of four out- 
door workiogmen, five dollars per week 
each, and the board of all these twelve- 
superintendent, seven teachers and four 
out-door work hands. These all eat at 
a separate table from the children, fur- 
nished out of the weekly allowance of 
two dollars and fifty cents each made to 
the little ones only. Of course the more 
costly the viands, superintendent, teach- 
ers and work hands load down their 
table with, the more meager the fare of 



the children whose servants, superin- 
tendent, teachers and workingmen are 
meant by the state to be. Is it not 
enough for the servant to be as great as 
his lord? If the institution is really, 
a "Home" why do not all eat at the 
same table? It is not home-like, to say 
the least, to put the little ones off to one 
side on corn bread and barley gruel, 
while the heads of the family eat white 
bread and roast beef. I am willing to 
eat the same that my children must 
needs eat, or other's children who have 
become part of my family. 

The Orphan's Home at Davenport is, 
I am credibly informed, conducted on 
the same unhomelike plan. The officers, 
I insist, of those institutions, ought to 
sit at the same table with these beauti- 
ful children, like true fathers and moth- 
ers with their beloved ones. If the food 
is good enough for the children it is 
surely good enough for those who lit- 
erally "eat the children's bread." 

To one who was ever sick m an army 
hospital during the war, it need not be 
told how the tables of the hearty sur- 
geons, hospital stewards, nurses and 
cooks groaned under the weight o£ 



( S5 ) 



dainties and delicacies sent down south 
to the " dear sick boys" by the Women's 
Loyal Leagues, Aid Societies and Christ- 
ian Commissions of the North, while the 
sick soldiers were regaled on dried ap- 
ples (usually boiled by wholesale, worms 
and all, to give them a palatable flavor 
and nourishing qualities), stale 
bread and poor coffee. 1 call public at- 
tention to the fact that, the children in 
our Orphan and Industrial Homes are 
nourished on the same well-meaning plan 
the sick soldiers were, when surgeons, 
stewards, nurses and cooks buttered 
their bread on both sides, while the sick 
boys got no butter at all on either side 
of their bread. It their care is not the 
primary, but only a secondary end, and 
self first, then woe to the little ones! 
Self is usually uppermost in the minds 
of the appointees of governments, The 
Iowa Industrial Home for boys is sup- 
ported on a still smaller allowance per 
child— it being but two dollars per week 
for each boy admitted. Superintendent, 
teachers and other employees, twenty in 
number, are all paid and fed out of this 
small allowance to the boys, and the 
other ordinary expenses of the institu- 
tion are met out of it too, the same as 
at the girl's Home. But here military 
style is put on enormously, I am told, 
three tables being set and furnished, each 
according to "rank" of the parties to be 
feasted and fed, viz; (1) Chief officers' 
table, (2) subordinate officers' table and 
(3) the childrens' table. I am credibly 
informed that the children are subjected 
here to harsh and cruel usage. Love is 
not the law of their treatment ; but co- 
ercion is. 

II. BRUfE Force. 

The more than a quarter of a century 
that I have given to tbe management of 
children and youth in the school-room, 
and my experience in bringing up a fam- 
ily of ten— four sons and six daughters- 
has convinced me that the perfect teacher 
and the model parent will inflict no pun- 
ishments at all ; that a resort to brute 
force in controlling children and youth, 
at school or at home, is the despairing 
wail of the vanquished school-master, 
parent or guardian— a confession of 
weakness and incompetency on his part. 
Nothing should be done by parent or 
teacher, guardian or ward that will des- 



troy, or in any degree lessen, self-respect 
in the mind of the child; but the aim 
of parent, teacher, etc., should be to in- 
crease in the mind of the little one this 
divine gift to such an extent that the 
wrong will be hated by it— the plane of 
enlightenment being reached by the child 
far above that in which the wrong is 
voluntarily chosen. It will be but a lit- 
tle while, I trust and most earnestly 
pray, till the Legislatures of the several 
states of the Union make it unlawful for 
teachers in our schools and elemosynary 
institutions,, in any way, by word, look 
or act, to make war upon the youths 
placed in their care to be educated. Let 
us cease to give to the little ones stones 
for bread, serpents for fish, and scor- 
pions for egge$ 

III. Self-Abnegation. 

The God of Heaven will bless the 
Sisters of Charity, who without 
pay or hope of government pension, 
nursed the sick and wounded of both 
armies in our fratracidal war. The de- 
votion that led those blessed Sisters to 
the field and hospital is the only motive 
that should actuate the superintend- 
ents and teachers of our public homes 
and schools. 

The State, I declare, does not, with 
motherly heart, take the little ones, as 
she ought, in her arms and bless them as 
Jesus did ; but (metaphorically speak- 
ing) she mechanically leads them with a 
cord of "red tape" tied about their little 
necks as calves are tethered with a rope. 
Though the food alotted them be good 
enough, the clothing warm enough, the 
beds soft enough, yet " better is a dinner 
of herbs where love is than a stalled ox 
and hatred therewith." I do not say, 
that positive hatred of the little ones is 
shown. Far from it. But the farmer's 
mechanically feeding and fattening his 
swine and kine is not identical with a 
mother's self-sacrificing devotion to her 
children. It is not love. Are the public 
homes of our State for children, I earn- 
estly ask, (and let our law-makers an- 
swer) the homesjof love that Jesus as law- 
maker would have instituted on the 
beautiful and bountiful prairies of Iowa 
— especially the miserable poorhouses 
into' which hundreds of the little ones 
are cruelly crowded ? 



ESSAY XL— EXCELSIOR. 



ADDRESSED TO YOUNG MEN. 
(Spoken at Humboldt, Iowa, September 26, 1875.) 

,J Zion it shall be said this and that man was born in her. * * * The 
Lord shall count when he writeth up the people that this man was born there. 1 
Psa. 87:5-6. 

I. A Man's a Man for a' That. m a ^ its grandeur and beauty thousands 

of years. What men have been born 
This lovely prairie laud has lam he.e here that the Lord shall count when he 



( 86 ) 



writeth up the people? It is men that 
give glory to a country. Of Zion it 
shall be said — this and that man was 
born in her. It is not her soil 
nor even her beautiful scenery that 
renders New England famous. It is the 
men she has produced. Whoever labors 
to build up his manhood, labors, then, 
to do that which the Lord shall count, 
when he writeth up the people. Boston 
is not se noted for anything as for being 
the birthplace of Franklin. Homer, dur- 
ing his life was so stingily patronized by 
his countrymen that he was compelled 
to beg his bread. One city it is said, he 
offered to make famous if its authorities 
would support him ; but his offer was 
declined. Yet aftar his death seven 
cities contended for the honor of having 
been his birthplace. Humble Ayer is 
famed forever, because about two miles 
from that town stands a small ivy- 
covered cottage in which Eobert Burns 
was born. Whose heart is not touched 
when he hears that name mentioned ! 
what a patriot, what a lover of liberty — 
how big his heart, how grand his love! 
What were Scotland without his mem- 
ory? Few pilgrims would visit her firth- 
indented shores but for his fame. Thous- 
ands now make pilgrimage thither just 
to look inside the humble dwelling where 
Eobert Burns was born, and to wander 
along the streams made immortal in his 
songs. Other great names has Scotland, 
but none so great as his. He conquered 
adversity, rose to renown, and— here let 
the curtain fall. He died at the early 
age of thirty-six— murdered by the de- 
mon, strong drink ! 

The name of Franklin is the pride of 
two cities— Boston and Philadelphia. 
On Philadelphia, his chosen home, he 
left impressed indelibly his image. His 
statue will grace her j:arks forever. But 
Boston is not less proud of him. He 
"was born there!" It was not "favor- 
able circumstances" that produced the 
greatness of either Franklin or Burns. 
They grew to grandeur by overcoming 
adverse 'conditions. From youth to 
manhood, and to the end of their lives, 
they followed an idea. "Excelsior" was 
their motto. While Burns was breaking 
tiax for a few pence a day, and subsist- 
ing on oatmeal porridge, he wrote to 
his father: "As to this world, I des- 
pair of making a figure in it. * * * I 
foresee that poverty and obscurity prob- 
ably await me. I am in some measure 
prepared and am daily preparing to meet 
them." We see in this despairing com- 
plaint the glimmering of a spark of inex- 
tinguishable hope. He was conscious of 
superior abilities. God was leading him 
by the hand to the accomplishment of a 
predestined part in the higher education 
of mankind — the evolution of universal 
liberty— of universal human eqaliry— g 
" A man's a man for a' that." « 

And, finally, the world beheld and won- 



dered at the greatness of the " peasant- 
bard." In spite of his humble surround- 
ings, supreme sufferings, and shortcom- 
ings, his life was a success. He left his 
image impressed indelibly upon Scot- 
land. The Lord shall count when he 
writeth up the people that this man was 
born there. 

Few reach distinction because the 
many have not the nerve to press on up 
the steep declivity to the portal of 
Fame's proud temple, that stands al- 
most inaccessible upon the rocky heights 
of the mount of aspiration. They are 
too easily dispirited. They cannot keep 
their faces to the pelting storm that 
rages against them with incessant fury. 
They retreat terrified and report a lion 
in the path. 

Franklin never lost courage. He went 
slowly and surely onward and upward. 
He made frequent discoveries in untrav- 
ersed seas of science, and he produced 
from the store house of his ingenuity, 
mechanical inventions of great practical 
utility. He was saving of his means; 
lived a long time on Indian-meal pud- 
ding; husbanded his money and time 
that he might lay up knowledge; was 
careless of appearances — did not fret if 
the fool had more costly clothes on than 
he. He was engaged in giving polish to 
his mind— accumulating ideas. Ideas are 
the only real and substantial wealth. 
Ideas move the world. They are the 
Archimedian lever. Franklin knew this. 
He lived in a world of thought. His 
companions were the great of every age. 
He^communed with Locke and Bacon. 
He read the best contemporary litera- 
ture, and he "talked with the lightning 
and the thunder." He grew into studious 
habits by allowing no moments of his 
valuable life to go to waste. 

II. The Value of Time. 

Oh, how valuable is time and how 
prodigal we are of it ! " The time," says 
Seneca, in his admirable book of 
"Morals," if.om the bright pages of 
which I shall illuminate this discourse 
with frequent and copious citations), 
"the time alotted us, if it were well em- 
ployed, were abundantly enough to an- 
swer all ends and purposes of mankind, 
but we squander it away, and when our 
portion is spent we find the want of it, 
though we gave no heed to it in the pas- 
sage, insomuch that we have rather 
made our life short than found it so." 
Again he says : "We should do by time 
as we do by a torrent, make use of it 
while we have it; for it will not last 
always." And again : " The wit of man 
is not able to express the blindness of 
human folly in taking so much greater 
care of our fortune— our houses and our 
money— than we do of our lives. Every- 
body breaks in upon the one gratis; but 
we betake ourselves to fire and sword if 
any man invades the other. * *■ * 



( 87) 



He that takes away a day from me 
takes away that which he can never re- 
store to me. But our time is either 
lorced away from us or stolen from us, 
or lost; of which the last is the foulest 
miscarriage." » 

Franklin grew into virtuous habits by 
being a merciless critic of his own conduct. 
Keeping a strict account of his daily ac- 
tions and carefully noting his mistakes, 
he thus guarded against their recurrence. 
The one word "habit" is the key of 
heaven and of hell. Good habits are a 
wall of protection, a citadel of safety to 
young and old. What but a miracle of 
grace can lift a man out of the quick- 
sands of evil habits ? Franklin merited 
the honorable title he won, of " philos- 
opher," because he studied how to live, 
as well as because of his discoveries in 
natural science. He was the Socrates of 
America. He regulated his youthful 
life by a well matured system, based 
upon sage maxims and brought bis pas- 
sions and appetites under control, recog- 
nizing the truth that " he that ruleth his 
spirit is greater than he that taketh a 
city." The following text of Scripture 
he verified literally in his experience: 
" Seest thou a man diligent in his busi- 
ness, he shall stand before kings." 

Washington was a most careful young 
man. He also studied in youth to reg- 
ulate his life by " rule and 'square." He 
was a diligent student, self-taught. Up- 
right and dignified in his everyday de- 
meanor, he was just the best and truest 
son of America. [The one man of our 
day whose life equaled that of Washing- 
ton, in dignified manliness, unswerving 
integrity and sublime patriotism, was 
Wendell Phillips.] You can get no war- 
rant for idleness, vice or intemperance 
in any shortcomings of the Father of his 
Country. One has no idea that Wash- 
ington was ever indiscreet in anything. 
Isn't he the true type of American man- 
hood ? What an example for the youth 
of our country to follow ! He did his 
whole duty and asked no reward but the 
love of his countrymen. Devoted en- 
tirely to other's good he had no seeming 
ambition. To be gratefully remembered 
was his only selfish desire. He gained 
his wish. He will never be forgotten. 
Beh old him in the firmament, a blazing 
sun, giving light, to all the world! The 
fame of Washington is not local. He is 
known and esteemed even in the most 
remote parts of Asia, Africa and upon 
the distant Islands of the Sea, as one of 
the greatest of the sons of men. Yea, in 
every land is he known and honored. 
When an American visits a foreign shore 
he is greeted with the glowing compli- 
ment : "Then you are from the land of 
"Washington." Proud land ! The Lord 
shall count when he writeth up the peo- 
ple that this man was born there. 

To even name those of our country- 
men of whom we are justly proud, would 
exceed the limits of a discourse like this. 



How many, very many, you may take 
encouragement from, when you see that 
they were just like you in youth, only 
poor boys, dependent on their own 
manly efforts alone for success in life. 
Such were Henry, Jackson, Clay, Web- 
ster, Lincoln, Douglas, ChJse, Stanton, 
Grant, Greeley, — glorious names that in 
bovhood battled successfully against 
difficulties just such as each one of you, 
to succeed, must meet and overcome. 
But I do not wish to awaken in your 
minds, young men, the desire of being 
distinguished, so much as the desire] of 
becoming worthy of being distinguished. 

III. True Freedom. 

Many think it freedom to indulge their 
evil passions unrestrained. But it is not 
freedom. It is slavery. He, only is a free 
man who is striving to do good and be 
good. Jesus was free. He went right 
forward to the accomplishment of his 
divine work, caring not what might 
stand in the waj . He lost his life by it. 
So much the better. To lose ones life in 
a good cause is to gain the cause as well 
as to save the life. He that thus loses 
his life shall find it. We don't need to go 
about hunting for an opportunity to 
give away our lives ; but if, in the pur- 
suit of the highest good, life must needs 
be sacrificed, it is not lost. We only be- 
come truly free wnen we will not pause 
in'our glorious career, for death itself. 

But suppose, young man, that you see 
the undeserving seem to gain all that 
you have been seeking all your days. 
Only wait on God— "The mills of the 
Gods grind slowly, but they grind ex- 
ceeding small." 

An earthquake, or fire from heaven, 
will not move- a good man from his 
place. He is a rock, fixed on a sure foun- 
dation. He cannot be moved. If he 
meets a seeming misfortune he says, " It 
is no misfortune. It will be for the best 
in the end," There is a law of compen- 
sation operating universally, [t makes 
all even. Briefly it is: Benefits coun- 
terbalance losses. To illustrate : If I 
lose my horse and am on that account 
compelled to bear, on my own should- 
ers my grists to and from the mill, the 
compensation to me is in increased 
strength of body gained by the increased 
exercise. Walking along Walnut street, 
in Des Moines, Iowa, one day, in com- 
pany with a wealthy friend of mine, we- 
beheld a stalwart Sac and Fox Indian, 
the personification of perfect health and 
complete physical manhood, pass by. 
My friend said with a sigh, " I would 
give all my weal th ( f or that man's health." 
That coveted health was the Indian's 
compensation for a life of poverty and 
exposure, in an open wigwam — coarse 
food, freedom and fresh air! 

The wise man always converts defeat 
into victory. He comes in at the right 
moment with his philosophy, as Crom- 
well did with his Ironsides. 



(88) 



*' It is the mind," says Seneca, " that 
makes us rich and happy in what condi- 
tion soever we are ; and money signifies 
no more thaikto the Gods." " Whether 
is it better," he says, " to have much or 
enough? " He that has much," he an- 
swers, "desires more and shows that he 
has not yet enough; but he that has 
enough is at rest. No man can be poor 
that has enough, nor rich that covets 
more than he has. * * * Money 
never made any man rich ; for the more 
he had the more he coveted. The richest 
man that ever lived is poor; but he that 
keeps himself to the stint of nature does 
neither feel poverty nor fear it. * * * 
Nature provides for health, not delicacy. 

* * * A man may lie as warm and dry 
under a thatched as under a gilded roof. 
He that has nothing to lose has nothing 
to fear. * * * It is not the augment- 
ing of our fortunes, but the abating of 
our appetites that makes us rich. The 
body is to be indulged no farther than 
for health. But it is every man's duty 
to make himself profitable to mankind. 

* * * It was not by choice meats and 
perfumes," said he (and we may truly 
say the same) " that our fathers recom- 
mended themselves, but in virtuous ac- 
tions and the sweat of honest, manly and 
military labors." 

My idea of a truly successful life, is 
that of one who ''leaves the world the 
better, the wiser and the happier for his 
having lived in it," who adds to the sum 
of real good to mankind. Seneca thus 
extols a life devoted to study : 

"That retreat," he says, "is not worth 
the while which does not afford a man 
greater and nobler work' than business. 

* * * He that is well employed in his 
study, though he may seem to do noth- 
ing at all, does the greatest things of all 
others in affairs both human and divine. 

* * * He withdraws himself to attend 
the service of future ages; and those 
counsels which he finds salutary to him- 
self he commits to writing for the good 
of after times— obliges human nature, 
not only in the present, but in all suc- 
ceeding generations." 

There are twenty-six letters [of 'the 
English alphabet, yet into how many 
thousand different words (over one 
hundred thousand) those twenty-six let- 
ters may be formed ! There are as many 
ways to the correct solution of the prob- 
lem of a successful life— as many doors 
open through which the persevering may 
pass into the temple of Athena. 

If we note the difficulties met and over- 
come by thereat rnen of whom the world 
is now proud, we shall be encouraged. 
The most amusing and entertaining of all 
the works of genius (the Adventures of 
Don Quixote) was written by Cerventes 
in prison. His enemies confined him 
there to subdue him; but he walked 
forth as mighty aconqueroras was Alex- 
ander the (treat. John Bunyan was 
locked up twelve years in Bedford jail to 



prevent him preaching to the'people; but 
the Pilgrim's Progress, written in his 
confinement, will point the way to the 
City of God till the world comes to an 
end. Dante was exiled from his native 
Florence, and reduced from affluence to 
beggary, in order to ruin him ; but in his 
exile he wrote the " Divina Comedia." 
At the age of fifty-six he died. His coun- 
trymen showed too late that they knew 
the value of what they had lost, and 
tried, but in vain, for hundreds of years, 
to have his rnoital remains restored to 
them. He lies buried at Eavenna; but 
in Florence to-day it is the proud boast 
of her people that Dante wa,j born there. 

IV. Cross and Crown. 

"No cross, no omwn," says the Christ- 
ian proverb. Seneca says the same 
thing in other words. He says: "There 
is no honor in the victory when there is 
no danger in the way to it." The sarne 
great writer further tells us that, 
"Calamity tries virtue as the fire does 
gold. * * * It is the occasion of vir- 
tue and a spur to a great mind. * * * 
God," he continues, "takes delight to 
see a brave and a good man wrestling 
with evil fortune and yet keeping himself 
upon his legs when the whole world is in 
disorder about him. No man can be 
happy," he concludes, " that does not 
stand firm against all contingencies and 
say to himself in all extremes, 'I should 
have been content if it might have been 
ao and so, but sincept was otherwise de- 
termined, God will provide better." 
" What," he finally asks, "does he care 
for ignominy that only values himself on 
conscience and not opinion? He that is 
wise," he answers, "will take delight 
even in an ill opinion that is well gotten. 
It is ostentation; not virtue, when a 
man will have his good deeds published ; 
but it is not enough to be just where 
there is honor to be gotten ; but to con- 
tinue so in spite of ignominy and danger." 

While in pursuit of some noble end, if 
your neighbors and countrymen abuse 
and persecute you and throw rotten 
eggs at you (as Garrett Smith and Will- 
iam Lloyd Garrison were frequently 
served) be not driven from the field or 
intimidated. One day they will honor 
your memory as we do now the memory 
of Smith and Garrison. You can do no 
praiseworthy action without awakening 
the envy of little men. Your best actions 
will be misrepresented, and your most 
earnest endeavors for the public good 
will call forth abuse. See Tasso wrong- 
fully imprisoned for seven long years as 
a lunatic; see Gallileo brought before 
the Inquisition ; see Socrates and Seneca 
condemued to death ; see Cicero pro- 
scribed and beheaded ; see Vane, Sidney 
Raleigh and Emmett brought to the 
scaffold; see Lincoln shot down in 
Ford's theatre, John Brownhung, Hus-?, 
Bruno and Servetus burned at the stake. 



( ri> ) 



Stephen stoned ' to death, and Jesus 
Christ crucified. But the places where 
those lofty spirits first beheld the light 
of day are sacred. " Virtue," Seneca de- 
clares, " cannot be hid ; for the time will 
come that shall raise it again (even 
after it is buried) and deliver it from the 
malignity of the age that oppressed it. 
Immortal glory is the shadow of it and 
keeps it company, whether we will or 
not; but sometimes the shadow comes 
before the substance, and at other times it 
follows ; and the later it comes the larger 
it is, when even envy itself shall have 
given way to it." 

Did Jesus have fears that his truth 
might fail? "Heaven aud Earth shall 
pass away," he said, "but my words 
shall not "pass away." He entrusted to 
the keeping of poor, ignorant and de- 



spised fishermen his doctrine. He knew 
that the good is imperishable. He wrote 
not one page with His own ha-Ld — not 
one word did He put upon parchment. 
Yet the leaven of his teachings outlasts 
the centuries, and His name is tc-day 
" above every name." 

Oh, young" men, be ye like the lowly 
Nazarine, the protectors of the weak, 
the lifters up of the downtrodden, the 
healers of the bruised ! Ye are strong. 
Use your strength in behalf of truth and 
right, and remember if called to give 
your lives for your country or for hu- 
manity, as thousands of your brave 
young countrymen have done on many 
a bloody battlefield, that 

" Whether on the scaffold high, 
Or in ; he battle's van— 

The titte-i place for man to die, 
is waerc he dies for mai." 



ESSAY XII. —THE BEATIFIED. 

RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED TO THE CLERGY OF EVERY DENOMINATION IN CHRISTENDOM, 

(Spoken at Humboldt, Iowa, September 19, 1875.) 
" Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. "—Matthew v : 8. 



The text divides naturally into three 
distint subjects of thought, (1) Blessed- 
ness, (2) Purity of Heart, and ^3) Seeing 
God. 

I. Blessedness. 

Blessedness (or happiness) is that in- 
definable boon after which all are seek- 
ing and have ever sought from the be- 
ginning. To define correctly a happy 
life was the end kept constantly in view 
by the philosophers of the olden time, 
from Socrates to Seneca, who though 
last in the order of time, is not lest in 
the order of merit. How may blessed- 
ness be assured? is the question they 
sought to answer in lengthy disqusi- 
tions, Seneca devoting an entire volume 
to discoursing of "A. happy Lift" — a 
subject which in a single lucid sentence 
the divine teacher, Jesus, makes so clear 
that no one can ever question its cor- 
rectness. Yet. alas! how few shape their 
hearts aud lives in accordance with the 
truth ! Some seek blessedness in the 
gratification of low. animal desires, some 
in the wine cup, some in hoarded wealth, 
some in acquired knowledge, some in 
conquest of nations, and some in the 
acquisition of fame, as poets, painters, 
etc. 

Who of my hearers will say that sen- 
sual gratification brings blessedness? 
The young and inexperienced are some- 
times unfortunately misled into this way 
of erroneous thinking. Thus deluded 
they become polluted in body and soul. 
The grave soon kindly hides them from 
sight and their names pta-ish ! The an- 
cient poets picture the sirens as possess- 
ing the most beautiful and fascinating 



womanly forms and voices; but whose 
fset divide into sharp and ugly claws 
that rend in pieces the unfortunate mar- 
iners brought within their power. Ulys- 
ses, warned by Circe, took the precau- 
tion of being, by his own direction, 
bound fast with strong cords (that he 
could not loose) to the mast of his good 
ship, before he ventured to behold sirens 
and listen to their songs. Let us sail 
clear of their enchanted island, not 
touching its dangerous shores. 

How many of us have shed bitter tears 
og sorrow at beholding the deplorable 
effects of strong drink! The drunkard 
seeks blessedness in the wine cup. Oh, 
my son, beware ! In the end it biteth 
like a serpent and stingeth like an adder. 
How many of us have beheld near and 
dear ones go down to drunkard's graves ! 
How many of us have promising sons 
whom we, in most helpless, hopeless and 
bitter agony of soul, shall tearfully inter 
in the inebriate's disgraceful sepulcher! 
How many of us have well-beloved 
daughters, whom we have brought up 
with tenderest care and educated in the 
best institutions of learning that our 
grand country affords, to fit them to 
become the worthy and happy compan- 
ions of such as God designed man to 
be,— 

" In action, how like an angel; 
In apprehension, how ike a jrod." 

Ah, see your darling child heart-broken 
now, she pines in wretchedness and want! 
See her, and her naked, starving off- 
spring, shivering about the expiring lla me 
in the empty grate this freezing winter's 
night. 



( 90 ) 



"Perhaps this hour in Misery's squallid nest 
She strains her infant to her joyless breast, 
And with a mother's fears, shimks from the 
rocking blast." 

What is it that startles and affrights 
her and her little children so? Is it the 
unnatural husband and father's foot- 
steps upon the threshold that they hear? 
Yes, he, the drunken and unworthy, is 
indeed returned home blear-eyed, curs- 
ing and staggering from his midnight's 
debauch! 

The wine cup may be put far from us 
in one way only — by our determinedly 
resisting the demon Intemperance 
in all his ugly shapes and garbs— aud es- 
pecially the tobacco serpent, clothed as 
he is in most disgusting, scaly habil- 
iments' that reek with abominable filth 
and sickening slime, and the odor of whose 
offensive breath is unbearable. Who- 
ever is a slave to tobacco has already 
sold his soul to the devil. Whoever is 
addicted to tobacco and does not be- 
come a drunkard, it will be because he 
stops short of the abyss over which he 
is tottering and into which he is ready 
to fall. It will take a very little push to 
send him headlong into the fiery gulf; 
for see he has already yielded up his 
sacred liberty — become a slave to appe- 
tite, senseless, unnatural appetite, more 
degrading than is the appetite for strong 
drink, and far more foul and disgusting. 
See his blackened teeth, offensive breath 
and uncivilized manners and appear- 
ance ! He cannot carry this savage- 
acquired practice into any decent place, 
be it family parlor, sacred pew or palace 
car. He must submit to be ignomin- 
iously banished into dens and caverns 
of filth by the loathsome tobacco habit. 
A craving for more potent stimulants 
is awakened by it, so that it is the al- 
most direct cause of drunkenness. It is 
Satan let loose on earth for a season, 
and oh, may that season soon draw to 
a close and he be confined in the bottom- 
less pit, to remain there for evermore. 

The father is anxious that his son 
shall be more temperate than he, him- 
self, has ever been; for what father 
would have his darling boy addicted to 
tobacco? Not one in a million. But if 
we would have our sons be freemen we 
must set the example of freedom. All 
reason and all experience are arrayed 
against the tobacco habit. Who can 
account for the almost universal prev- 
alence of this shameful habit and admit 
man to be a rational creature at all? If 
reason were t ie guide of youth, in the 
formation of habits, it would be neces- 
sary to admit that man is not a rational 
animal. But reason is not the guide, 
though it ought to be. Example is. Ex- 
ample is the only teacher of youth. 
This may be stated as a law — a fixed 
rule that has no exception. The old, 
too often, are slaves of bad habits ac- 
quired in immature youth. Reason is 
enthroned (if ever) only when the mind 



has reached its maturity. Then man 
may consider what he ought to do and 
fight against the great enemy— the Satan 
of bad habits acquired in youth, and dis- 
regarding what others do he may try to 
do what is ''according to reason." 

The young imitate what they see done 
by others, especially by those whom 
they most admire. The example of the 
great (as of General Grant in smoking) 
has a most potent influence for evil over 
their minds and actions. Badness seems 
to be catching, like contagious disease. 
Goodness, like health, is not, it seems, 
so catching. A bad example set by a 
great man does incalculable harm. 

Another law also steps in to help drag 7 
down the young — the law of inheritance. 
By saturating our flesh and poisoning 
our blood with the deadly poison of to- 
bacco, our children inherit a diseased 
craving for stimulants, as consumption 
and insanity are inherited. 

And do ye seek for blessedness, O ye 
fathers, in the use of tobacce? It is not 
to be found there. Your tobacco-tainted 
breath you breathe into the face of the 
wife of your youth during the long years 
of your married life, and she, poor soul, 
religiously bears it as a "cross." We 
acquired this loathsome practice from the 
example of the untutored, enemy -scalp- 
ing, woman-enslaving aborigines of the 
stone age of America— and it is a prac- 
tice only suited to the condition of the 
lowest savages and the degredation of 
woman. To sit idly, bent over the little 
squaw-built fire in the center of the lazy 
Indian's wigwam, expectorating from be- 
tween dirty, tobacco-scaled teeth the 
black and disgusting ooze, into the 
flames and ashes, or upon the vermin- 
reeking dirt floor, is not greatly out of 
harmony with the surroundings, vet un- 
savory even there. But the Indian's 
wigwam is the only place (we may ob- 
serve) where men and women sit aro und 
the same fire, that the common notice is 
not posted conspicuously, "No Smoking 
or Chewing of Tobacco Allowed Here;" 
for the tobacco habit is incongruous to 
any condition of civilized life, as all men, 
(and more especially all women), well 
know. 

And what blessedness is there in the 
insatiate struggle for wealth? What 
blunting of the moral sense when we take 
what is not our own, by charging too high 
a price for what we have to sell, paving 
the worker too low a price for his labor, 
or taking advantage of some technicality 
of the law to seize our neighbor's farm 
for a trifling debt. " Ths love of money 
is the root of all evil." It is the direct 
cause of all wars and oppressions, and 
of nearly all the wrongs that man has to 
suffer from his fellow men. Does wealth 
bestow blessedness on its possessor? 
"I made me great works," says Solo- 
mon, '' I builded me houses, I planted 
me vineyards, I made me gardens and 
orchards and planted trees iti them ot 



( 91 ) 



all kinds of fruits ; I made me pools of 
water to water therewith the wood that 
bringeth forth trees. I got me servants 
and maidens, and had servants born in 
my house ; also I had great possessions 
of great and small cattle above all that 
are iu Jerusalem before me. I gathered 
me also silver and gold and the peculiar 
treasure of kings and of the provinces. I 
got me men singers and women singers 
and the delights of the sons of men, as 
musical instruments and that of all 
sorts. So I was great and increased 
more than all that were before me in 
Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained 
with me, and whatsoever mine eyes de- 
sired I kept not from them. I withheld 
not my heart from any joy; for my 
heart rejoiced in all my labors : and this 
. was the portion of all my labor. Then 
I looked on all the works my hands had 
wrought and on the labor that I had 
labored to do; and behold all was vanity 
and vexation of spirit, and there was no 
profit under the sun." 

A similar experience the wise king had 
in pursuit of knowledge. "I saw," he 
said, "that wisdom excelleth folly as 
far as light excelleth darkness ; the wise 
man's eyes are in his head, but the fool 
walketh in darkness— and I perceived 
also that one event happened to all. 
Then I said in my heart, as ithappeneth 
to the fool so it happeneth even to me, 
and why was I then made wise ? Then I 
said in my heart that is also vanity." 

Solomon's wisdom, then, did not 
bring true blessedness to him. It would 
not to us. To be acquainted with all 
the secrets of science, to have scaled the 
mountain peaks of knowledge, and to 
have explored her ocean beds and hidden 
caves, to have deciphered all the hiero- 
glyphics on the tombs along the Nile, to 
have read the inscriptions on all the tab- 
lets found on the plains of Babylon, and 
to have amassed the learning of a New- 
ton or a Humboldt, would not make us 
blest— would not satisfy. To be a states- 
man great as Pericles or Lincoln, or an 
orator like Demosthenes or Webster, or 
a conquerer great as Alexander or Well- 
ington, would not bring us true blessed- 
ness. Was the greatest of poets, even 
Homer, truly happy? Was Byron or 
Chatterton, or Burns, or Keats, or Poe? 
The painter before his canvas, 

"Plucking the shadows wild forth with his 
reaching fancy." 

Is he truly blest? 

"Ah, there's a deathless name, 

A spirit that the smothei'ing- vault shall 

Bpurn, 
And like a steadfast planet mount and 

burn.*"' 

But the poet moralizes : 

"This unreined ambition 

Turns tne heart to asfces, and with not a 

spring- 
Left in the desert for the sp ; rit* s lip, 
We look upon our splendor and forget 
The thirst with which we perish ." 



II. Purity of Heart. 



" Happiness belongs to the mind and 
depends not for its existence upon out- 
ward conditions" — is the doctrine of the 
philosophers of antiquity. "The seat of 
it is within," says mv favorite Seneca;" 
and there is no cheerfulness like the reso- 
lution of a brave mind that has for- 
tune under his feet. He that can look 
death in the face and bid it welcome; 
open his doors to poverty and bridle his 
appetites ; this is the man whom prov- 
idence has established in the possession 
of inviolable delights." Again he says: 
" the true felicity of life is to be free from 
perturbations, to understand our duties 
towards God and man; to enjoy the 
present without any anxious dependence 
upon the future. Not to amuse ourselves 
with either hopes or fears, but to rest 
satisfied with what we have, which is 
abundantly sufficient ; for he that is so 
wants nothing." This is the Roman 
virtue: "An invincible greatness of 
mind not to be elevated or dejected by 
good or ill fortune." And this the Ro- 
man wisdom: — "The habit of a perfect 
mind and the perfection of humanity 
raised as high as nature can carry it." 

Let me now seriously inquire: Does 
the divine law of Jesus Christ rise higher 
than the sublime level of the ancient ex- 
cellence here brought to view ? I answer 
unhesitatingly, it certainly does. It in- 
cludes all this and adds something super- 
eminently higher still. It introduces and 
emphasizes an elemental perfection of 
personal character wanting in the bull- 
dog "virtue" and selfish "wisdom" of 
the Greek and Roman philosophy. 

" Blessed are the pure in heart." Here 
is the blessedness, not of the hardened 
warrior steeling his soul against suffer- 
ing ; but of the angels of love in Para- 
dise. The old philosophy seems to have 
oozed out from among the rocks of the 
world's iron age of war, cruelty and 
woe; Christianity to have flowed out of 
crystal springs inside the Garden of 
vEden before the fall, ere war, cruelty and 
woe were known. Philosophy seems to 
have been given as an armor of steel to 
protect its stubborn possessors against 
the attacks of savage men, armed with 
battle-axes, pikes and bludgeons. Christ- 
ianity seems to have been given to in- 
spire compassionate men to do disinter- 
ested deeds of love, charity and mercy, 
to heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, cast 
out the demons, make the deaf hear, the 
blind see, the lame walk, to take the lit- 
tle children up in loving arms and bless 
them, and to bring the dead to li?e. The 
accounts of christian martyrdoms from 
Stephen to Servetus prove how well 
Christianity prepares the mind to endure, 
too, all kinds of sufferings with a most 
willing submission and sublime fortitude. 

Jesus directs his speech to a higher 
order of spirits than the rough Greek 
and Roman warriors, that the philos- 



( 92) 



ophy of that day was fitted for and ad- 
dressed to, when he pronounces his ben- 
ediction of " blessed" upon the " pure in 
heart." He seems to be addressing the 
glorified hosts of heaven, or such of 
earth as Milton describes : 

"For God will deign 
To vis't oft the dwellings of just men 
Delia hted, and with frequent intercourse 
Thither send his winged messengers 
On errands of supernal grace. 11 

"Thrice happy men 
And sons of men whom God hath thus ad- 
vanced, 
Created in His image there to dwell 
And worship Him and in reward to rule 
Over His works on earth, in sea, or air, 
And multiply a race of worshipers, 
Holy and just: thrice happy if they know 
Their happiness and persevere upright. 11 

The philosophy ofj Greece and Eome 
took man as it found him in that day 
and regulated his actions, conforming 
them to an arbitrary law formulated in 
the intellect of the theorist; but it left 
the man unchanged in heart, except, per- 
haps, to be more dos?ged still. But Jesus 
takes the unregenerate man in hand tvj 
regenerate him,— ("you must be born 
again") begins with the heart — changes 
it, and thus (the heart being the fountain- 
head of human actions) he changes the 
whole subsequent conduct of the man. 
Saul becomes Paul, not in obedience to 
a philosophy learned by him through a 
long course of studyj in the schools 
(though he once sat at the feet of the 
eminent Judean teacher, Gamaliel,) but 
in obedience to a new love instantan- 
eously implanted in his heart. 

True, indeed, his mind was, at the 
same time, changed. New ideas had en- 
tered his brain ; but they passed through 
it and penetrated his heart; or rather, 
we may say, his radiant heart enkind- 
ling his mind, inflamed it to a blazing 
torch. He sat on his horse a heartless 
sheriff with warrants in his possession 
"from the chief priests of Jerusalem " 
directing him to arrest and punish vio- 
lators of the Jewish law in Damascus; he 
arose from the ground a philanthropist, 
of whom John Howard and Elizabeth 
Fry were but faint shado ws. He groped at 
first in darkness, his duty not being im- 
mediately clear to him, but his heart had 
become so enlarged that it compre- 
hended the universe. It became the 
dwelling place of the infinite God. All 
aslow with flaming zeal, the electric glare 
of Christ-given love, he soon was seen 
wending Lis ecstatic way on foot from 
province to province of the Roman- 
Empire, from Palestine to Spain, preach- 
ing a strange, and before unheard of 
doctrine of self-sacrificing gentleness and 
compassionate love in an asie of supreme 
selfishness, cruelty and hate, when men 
knew only bloodshed and heartless tyr- 
anny, tie was heard with amazement 
by the great. Even the fair-minded Fes- 
tns said to him : " Paul, Paul, thou art 
beside thyself, much learning doth make 



thee mad;" but Paul meekly replies: 
" I am not mad, most noble Festus, but 
speak forth the words of truth and 
soberness," . 

Which is the more rational method, 
that of the philosophers or that of Jesus? 
I say emphatically, that of Jesus; be- 
cause from the heart proceeds action 
(passion is the source of action;) from 
the head proceeds illumination. It was 
not reason that led Warren to his death 
on Bunker Hill ; it was passion —sublime 
patriotism. Reason is as cold, rigid and 
dead| as a snake in midwinter, until 
warmed into suppleness and life in the 
sunshine of passion. Recognizing the 
truth, then, that from the heart proceed 
all human actions, good and bad, as 
from a fountain flows water, sweet and 
bitter, the necessity for a pure heart an- 
tecedent to a correct and blissful life is 
apparent. It is apparent, also, why 
the New Testament writers make so 
much of love. Certainly the New Testa- 
ment is a great poem of the heart. Cer- 
tainly Christianity is the poetry of the 
heart of God. 

By the light of reason the impurities of 
the human heart may be brought into 
view. By the light of reason men may 
discover the obstructions on the track 
of the celestial railroad. Reason is the 
headlight of the locomotive; but the 
power that impels the ponderous engine 
forward toward the City of God, or back- 
ward toward the City of Destruction, 
proceeds from the heart. Jesus taught 
by parables. He was a most convi icing 
reasoner. By the three-deep pha'a ix of 
syllogism (Aristotlian logic) Paul was 
aided in his successful warfare against 
Judaism and Paganism. But all-con- 
quering love was ever foremost in the 
battle line, clad in armor more invulner- 
able and bearing a shield more resplend- 
ent than the hero of the Iliad— the in- 
vincible Achilles bore— and to love be- 
longs the palm of victory. Within the 
christian's heart dwell the trinity of vir- 
tues, Faith, Hope and Love, but the 
greatest of these is love. 

I must further emphasize the thought 
that the blessedness of the religion of 
Jesus comes to none but the good ; that 
the "divine physician" gives no opiates; 
but he " heals the sick." And His bless- 
edness is the supreme joy of moral, spir- 
itual, and I may add, physical health- 
fulness. He anticipates a " new earth in 
which dwelleth righteousness"— a new 
order of healthful souls under the do- 
minion of love; and, in his sublime beat- 
itudes, He addresses this audience of 
heavenly-minded persons- the truly be- 
atified --"the poor insp'rit," "they that 
mourn," "the meek," "they that hun- 
ger and thirst after righteousness, "the 
merciful." "the pure in heart," "the 
peace-makers," "the persecuted for 
righteousness' sake,"— and "the falsely 
accused" for the sake of Jesus— in a word, 
true christians. Now, if you say, there 



( 93 ) 



are few of these to-day, I will reply that 
the world will yet be fully peopled by 
them. Such must be the effect of the 
leaven of his love; such the growth' of 
the grain of mustard seed. Then will 
all men "see God ;" for " He shall dwell 
with them and be their God, and they 
shall be His people." 

III. Seeing God. 

The ancients, long anterior to the 
Christian Era, believed it possible for 
the impure soul to become pure. Bud- 
dah says : " Let man blow off the impu- 
rities of his soul as the smith blows off 
the impurities of silver, one by one, lit- 
tle by little." A modern apostle of lib- 
erty and truth, Theodore Parker, has 
said: 

" The world is close to the body ; God 
closer to the soul, not only without, but 
within, for the all-pervading current 
flows into each. The clear sky bends 
over each man, little or great. Let him 
uncover his head. There is nothing be- 
tween him and infinite space. So, the 
ocean of God encircles all men. Uncover 
thy soul of its sensuality, selfishness, 
sin, there is nothing between it and God, 
who flows into the man as light into the 
air. Certainly, as the open eye drinks in 
the light, do the "pure in heartseeGod." 

Let us accept, then, the truths that 
sages and philosophers, poets and 



prophets of old and of modern times, 
have bequeathed us, separating the 
chaff from the wheat— proving all things, 
hold fast that which is good. Christian- 
ity is leaving off, as an old, worn-outgar- 
ment, the superstitions that enshroud- 
ed it in the past — the sectarian narrow- 
ness and persecuting bigotry, as well. 
Soon there will be but one church — the 
universal Brotherhood and Sisterhood. 
Love is the fulfilling of the law. It is all- 
conquering. The ice-floes of barbarism- 
cruelty and war — will melt under its be- 
nign rays, that shall beam with a supe- 
rior brightness after awhile, when the 
clouds of ignorance shall have rolled en- 
tirely away. 

"Forthwith our air 
Cleared of the rack that hung on it before 
Glitters: and with its beauties all unveiled 
The firmament looks forth serene and smiles, " 

Then in our evening canopy will that 
most resplendent star that Dante be- 
held in Paradise appear: 

"O grace, unenvying of thy bo^n that gavest 
Boldness to fix so earnestly my ken 
On the everlasting splendor, that I looked 
While sight was unconsumed, and in that 
depth 
Saw in one volume clasped, (of love) what- 
e'er 
The universe unfolds: all properties 
Of substance and of accident beheld 

Compounder, yet one individual light the 
The whole.' 1 



.THE TRIUMPH OF WOMAN. 



OPTIMIST, PESSIMIST. 
" Biesserl are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth.— Jesus 

OPTIMIST. 



The social evil, half its woes no pen can e'er de- 
pict; 

I honor tbee for thy good work, Lovina Bene- 
dict! 

The silent workers, good and true, will bring 
the day about 

Tbat we have long been praying for when evil 
6hall die out; 

When man shall rise superior to lust and selfish 
greed 

And woman shall be disenthralled as nature's 
God decreed; 

She walks the earth an angel now, the light of 
every zone; 

She is the queen of loveliness, to her is sin un- 
known, 

Until by man (her only shield) is confidence be- 
trayed ; 

In him is all the villainy ; on him the sin be laid 1 

PESSIMIST. 

Right here is where your reasoning, O Optimist's 
unsound : 

'Tis man to whom she looks for help to lift her 
from the ground. 

See how Lovina Benedict was pelted with re- 
buffs 

By the Solon Legislators— how a raft of brain- 
less roughs 

(The champions of iager beer, limburger, sauer 
kraut,) 

Cough, wink and nudge each other, and then 
coldly bow her out! 

The whiskey rings must rule, you know, and 
"personal liberty" 



(The only cry that durst be raised) means gross 

debauchery ; 
It means to license dens of shame; open the 

gates of Duath; 
Therefore whoever cries "reform" will only 

waste his breath. 

OPTIMIST. 

Have courage, brother! I behold the dawn of 

true reform— 
The cause of ;woman triumphant; God comes 

not in the'stoim, 
The quiet workers will prevail, with woman in 

the van, 
And Mary Darwin live to see, and Martha Calla- 

nan, 
Our daughters honored as our sons ; our mothers, 

(names revered!) 
And our good wives — bone of our bone — to us 

still more endeared 
By the interest they shall evince in every glorious 

Grafting 'by ballot wisest thought and heart- 

pra^ ers on our laws. • 

And this is all that woman asks: Make life's 

arena broad — 
An ample field in which to moil, a gleaner for 

her God. 
O a why should they wear shackles, those proud 

mothers of our sons ; 
To them far dearer than to us are home and little 

ones! 
Haste, haste to place within their reach stout 

weapons of defense ; 
That loa of home then quickly dies, demon In- 
temperance! 



(M) 



Yea their interests they are greater than mans 

selfish interests, far; 
Theirs, clearly theirs (fl sh, blood and bone) all 

human creatures are. 
Fond mothers will protect their sons when they 

have power to save ; 
When they can vote, I must believe, ail evil finds 

a grave ; 
Enfranchised women! with glad songs the event 

will angels bill— 
War end forever; "peace on earth, good will 

toward men" prevail.. 

PESSIMIST. 

OfrieDd, how very different all things appear to 

met 
That happy outcome of your dreams this world 

will never see; 
Black Tyranny and Cruelty, while man exists, 

remain, 
And Poverty and Woe and Sin, and sordid Lust 

of Gain. 
An eyerlasting conflict fierce rages 'twixt Right 

and Wrong 
Despite the voice of prophets old and later 

poets song; 
DeBpite all theorizing 'tis the great Creator's 

plan; 
Decay is Nature's finalty and death the doom of 

mm ; 
And Sin is ever uppermost and Evil triumphs 

still; 
The universal tendency 's not upward, but down 

hill ; 
Yea, man has been a tyrant, and fond woman's 

been misused, 
(No one will ever question this) and she'll be still 

abused ; 
Though Bhe stands (in her importance in the 

universe) ahead, 
The primal source of life on earth (as you have 

truly said); 
For, man was given the greater strength by 

Heaven's supreme decree, 
And she must bow submissive lest existence 

«ease to be. 
This thesis, friend, you will admit: "The 

stroLger must prevail." 

OPTIMIST. 

Will mind succumb to matter then, the cause of 
woman fail ? 

Superior in the moral realm, the gods must yield 
io her ; 

Wielding the potent wand of love she will be 
conqueror. 

Woman I Call her feeble I there are ripples on 
the deep ; 

Remove old Ocean from his bed: Why, Her- 
cules, you sleep I 

She asks no "rights" for selfish ends; for see 
where Love commands 

She strikes down "Self!" To shield the weak 
she every ill withstands. 

The fear of death has no restraint when Love 
bids her to move; 

When Memphis felt the fatal plague behold fond 
woman's love! 

She leaps into the jaws of Death, not for the bau- 
ble fame, 

Not as the brave "six hundred" charged, her 
motive not the same. 

What bore her to the scene of woe? Her heart 
that never fails ! 

How many sleep in unknown graves, true Flor- 
ence Nightengales ! 

Though timid, like the harmless roe when dan- 

fer is afar, 
and collected, undismayed, where Death 
and Danger arel 

Kate Shelley braves the Storm-fiend's rage, 
Daruness, the roaring Flood; 

Does Fear deter? Love leads her on; but who 
protects her? God! 

The social evil must die out when we remove its 
cause ; 

See woman then its cause remove when she dic- 
tates the laws ! 



PESSIMIST. 

But, Optimist, the social sin has always cursed 
our earth ; 

How little 'tis abated even since the Saviour's 
birth! 

Or since poor Mary Magdalene beheld its anti- 
dote 

In him, tbe true Redeemer! And what now 
(though womin vote) 

Can be done to lift the fallen from the slums and 
hold them up? 

Oh I'd rejoice to see removed the poisoned, bit- 
ter cap 

That the millions (darling daughters fondest pa- 
rents doted on) 

Now drink, are lost, " abandoned!" Oh that day 
for them might dawn ! 

Egyptian night enshrouds them. Like the giddy 
butterfly, 

In a blaze of sensuality, behold them flit and die 1 

OPTIMIST. 

The answer, Pessimist, is given, when you the 

Saviour name; 
The antidote is love! 'Twill all the Magdalenes 

reclaim; 
The love engrafted on our laws that beams from 

woman's soul, 
The love that Christ imparted, 'twill the universe 

control! 
Will lilt the abandoned from the slums. The 

Heaven-sent antidote 
Will be applied to every ill when woman casts 

her vote. 
For drunkards grand asylums, and for the aban- 
doned homes ; 
When she prevails we hear the shout: "Behold 

the Master comes;" 
Yea, this (His second coming) mighty prophets 

old foresaw, 
When He shall reign a thousand years and love 

shall be the law! 
Not anything that she deems wrong will she 

(lawmaker) do ; . 
And righteousness placed in the laws will curb 

the greedy few. 
Will give the toiling many all the products of 

their toil; 
Will break the foul monopolies : land, railroad, 

standard oil, 
Remove the cause of social vice ; give all a work ; 

and give 
To all the certain prospect that by labor they 

shall iive. 

PESSIMIST. 

You are too sanguine in your hopes, kind Opti- 
mist, by far; 

For woman is as greedy as all other creatures 
are ; » 

And she will wink at evil if that evil bring her 
wealth ; 

And she will be as ready quite to overreach by 
stealth; 

Corruption, too, in politics, will not be less ram- 
pant; 

Old England has a queen, you know, with heart 
of adamant; 

Beholds the woes of Ireland; beholds the millions 
die 

Of hunger, robbed, oppressed; and yet her gra- 
cious eyes are dry ! 

OPTIMIST. 

Man is the first when evil comes to grasp the 

sinful cup; 
When evil dies, see he is then the last to give it 

it up! 
The wave that drowns King Alcohol, drowns the 

tobacco fiend; 
Who last, I ask, i&'t he or she that from its power 

is weaned? 
And though you blame the British queen, the 

fault rests not with her ; 
For England's sins arraign her lords and her 

Prime Minister. 
Let suffrage be extended in Great Britain; let all 

men 



(95 ) 

equals, and 



<And women too) go to the polls 
right then 

A mighty revolution would the world at once be- 
hold, 

And Ireland would rejoice indeed with blessings 
manifold. 

When this shall come about, dear friend, in every 
Christian land, 

God's kingdom we behold in fact; the armies all 
disband; 

The world we see united in a sisterhood of states, 

A congress of all nations meet (peaceful confed- 
erates!; 

To settle all disputed points. The sword will 
nevermore 

Be drawn from out its scabbard to be stained 
with human gore. 

PESSIMIST. 

When Selfishness has ceased to be, and kings are 
overthrown, 

And when the toiling millions stand together 
and are one, 

We may hope to see the happy lime that you an- 
ticipate, 

When each shall seek the other's good and all 
co-operate 



To lift the helpless from the dust and care for 

the distressed; 
To give the enfeebled pleasant homes and to the 

toilers rest. 

OPTIMIST. 

That blessec 1 day is sure to come and now is al- 
most here, 
When Might shall cease to be the law and none 

will domineer; 
When Righteousness will reign on earth and 

" right 1 ' rhe only end. 
And man will be no longer "lord, 11 but woman's 

trusted friend; 
And it is plain and plausihle that cruel, bestial 

Force 
Has in this age of Intellect now nearly run his 

course; * 
The weaker are the stronger, and the mighty are 

the weak, 
The world is newly peopled; its inhabitants the 

meek. 

Feb. 25, 1883. 



ESSAY XIII— CRIMES AND CRIMINALS. 



RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED TO ALL LEGISLATORS THE WORLD OVER. 

(Spoken at Humboldt, Iowa, October 17, 1875.) 
" Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more.— John viii: 11. 



I. Guardianship. 

Just how far has community a right 
to inflict punishment or pain upon indi- 
viduals for crime? I undertake to say, 
and to defend the idea, that no man, no 
«et of men, no state, no power on earth 
has a right to even pluck a hair from a 
living man's head in the way of hurting 
him for his acts, it is not right to pun- 
ish men for crime, in the sense that we 
commonly understand the word punish- 
ment. When I say that I believe it is 
not right, I mean that it is wrong and, in 
my opinion, contrary to good policy 
and a violation of natural right to fine 
a man, taking from him his earnings, or 
to inflict upon him pain for violating 
law ; and I give as my authority for so 
saying and so believing, the words of 
Jesus, "Neither do I condemn thee; go 
and sin no more." 

When the divine law of christian love 
has become crystalized in the laws of the 
land, it will be acknowledged that the 
chief blame rests on community for the 
rimes of individuals, and the commu- 
nity will then endeavor to prevent the 
recurrence of evil by doing now for the 
criminal (better late than never) what 
it had neglected to do for him in his boy- 
hood—give him correct ideas by means 
of instruction in its schools. To do this 
the state must regard the criminal as a 
child. A man may be as robust as Go- 
liath and as strong as Samson physi- 
cally whose mind (and the mind is the 
man) is the same a s the mind of a boy 
ten years old. When the individual fails 
■as an individual and cannot, for want 



of moral culture and stamina, walk up- 
rightly, he ought to be put under guard- 
ianship and kindly tutelage— be instruct- 
ed in the way of uprightness. That is all 
the state has any right to do with the 
individual— to declare him legally a 
child unable to walk alone when he fails 
as a man. It has a right to appoint a 
guardian over him and to give him work 
to do ; and it should give him full pay 
for doing it, that he may earn a living 
for himself and family. It has a right 
(duty "rather) to place within his reach 
good books, and to give him kind and 
enlightened teachers who will impart to 
him correct ideas. The criminal laws of 
the land should have only one aim in so 
far as the criminal is concerned, viz: 
reformation, and this reformation can 
be brought about only by kindly treat- 
ment, and education of his moral nature. 
But may it not be objected that the 
" vicious and vagabond class" will vol- 
untarily seek admission to these reform 
institutions on account of the comforts 
and conveniences afforded? I reply, 
that will be as I would desire, for is it 
not better to have them come volun- 
tarily than to have the expense put 
upon the State of their arrest, trial, and 
the giving of rewards by the Governor 
for their apprehension, after they shall 
have committed some awful crime- 
driven to it by their surroundings — the 
want of fraternal regard and patron- 
izing friendlines of the social arrange- 
ments of the community in which they 
are placed by circumstances beyond 
their control— forced into crime by the 
barbarism of the age. Those who can- 



(«< 



not by their own effort find useful, pleas- 
ant, healthful and remunerative em- 
ployment, should be given such employ- 
ment by the state— the commonwealth 
taking care that no human energies be 
wasted, that no willing arm be idle ; but 
all resources of mind and muscle be sys- 
tematically called into use and put into 
action for the common good, by the co- 
operation of a christian people working 
to the end of perfecting the social fabric. 
When all men and all women feel to- 
ward the outcasts as Jesus felt towards 
them, we shall have infirmaries, reform- 
atories, pleasant hospitals, retreats, 
homes for the erring, wherein they shall 
find sincere love. Then the sick will be 
healed, the blind brought to see, the deaf 
to hear, the lame to walk, the dead to 
live. Indeed the erring will be more ten- 
derly cared for than the good ; for " the 
whole need not a physician, but the 
sick," and "what man of you having a 
hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, 
doth not leave the ninety-and-nine in 
the wilderness and go after that which 
is lost?" And it is important to ask 
how long will he go after the lost ? The 
answer is, "until he find it!" We shall 
be peculiarly solicitous that pleasant 
homes and remunerative employment 
be provided for the erring and sinful, 
that good influences be thrown around 
them and they reclaimed to virtue and 
to society, that the whole family of man 
may be happy, that none of our dear 
brothers and sisters may be wandering 
in darkness and the valley and shadow 
of death. We ought to run out after, 
them and seek for them, as did the shep- 
herd his lost lamb, not as individuals 
only, but as a state, and continue seek- 
ing until we find them. Our criminal 
code to-day is little more christian than 
are the criminal laws of the Cannibal 
Islands. Our laws are not inspired by 
love of the sinner, but by hate. There is 
no effort to restore the lost sheep to its 
pasture, but to slay it. If mankind were 
as ready to act the part of christians as 
they are to make professions of Christ- 
ianity it would require no argumenta- 
tion to secure the reforms here proposed. 

II. The Divine in Man. 

The State, I insist, has no more right 
to take the life of a human being than I 
have, or to rob a man of his earnings 
than I have. The many have no rights 
that do not belong equally to the few. 
If we would have individuals quit mur- 
dering and robbing, the state must first 
cease to murder and rob. If one has no 
right to kill, the millons have no right to 
kill, and a right that does not exist can- 
not be delegated to a sheriff. 

The individual flows along the pre- 
pared channel, that circumstances have 
dug for him, like water in a canal, and 
few souls are strong enough to break 
over the embankment and form a better 



channel for themselves, by force God 
given. Men are as weak, as a rule, in the 
direction of their passions, appetites and 
habits as new born babes. There is, 
however, a latent love of right in every 
immortal mind. That love of right is 
the divine spark of immortality itself. 
It is the never-dying man. It is all that 
is human. It is all that is divine. It is 
the essential being. All else is foreign. 
All else is capable of elimination. This 
is everlasting. It is derived from deity, 
and is as eternal as God himself. To 
enkindle to a mighty flame this divine 
spark in every human breast is the ob- 
ject of christian effort for the redemp- 
tion of the fallen in this world, and in 
the world to come. 

I mean to say that the person is not 
greatly blamable, as a rule, for his life 
however bad that life ; but the environ- 
ment is mainly at fault. As with the 
growth of grain, so with the growth of 
the human mind. The best seed may 
produce a poor crop, if planted in bad 
soil, of a cold season and tillage neglected. 
Blame not the seed if the crop fail under 
these circumstances, But if the seed be 
fatally bad it is a defect oE nature. So 
is inherited disease of mind and body, — 
and not less inherited viciousness than 
inherited insanity or consumption — to 
be pitied, and if possible cured, not 
punished. "Punitive justice," so-called, 
is barbarity. It is heathenish injustice. 

You may make water rise to the 
clouds by the application of heat, and 
you may make a saint of a Saul of Tar- 
sus, if you change his heart by a proper 
presentation of divine truth and light. 
But how may Jesus reach him to convert 
him? and how may the divine bright- 
ness shine down upon him ? Jesus may 
reach him through the medition of 
kind words: " Saul, Saul, why persecu- 
test thou me?" through the ministra- 
tion of angels of mercy like Elizabeth 
Fry ; and the light may shine down upon 
him from the countenances of brothers— 
of men who have in them the mind that 
was in Jesus— of men who love their fel- 
low-men — of christians indeed. It isn't 
the hail storm or hurricane that makes 
the grass grow, the trees bud and blossom 
and bear fruit. It is the gentle rain and the 
mild and loving sunlight. Gentleness 
and love win the most obdurate to vir- 
tue, as the warm sunshine melts the 
mountains of ice and snow, and trans- 
forms nature, making the birds sing and 
the heart of the husbandman glad. It 
is around the sun that worlds revolve, 
turning to it for light and heat; and 
around the Son of Righteousness, the 
loving Jesus, mankind have gathered for 
eighteen hundred years with admiration, 
adoration and worship ; and from him 
they may learn how to govern states 
and what words should be written in the 
text of all the criminal codes of the 
nations, viz: "Neither do I condemn 
thee; go and sin no more." 



(97) 



III. Spirits in Prison. 

It is the wrong- that should be con- 
demned, and not the wrong doer ; it is 
the sin that should be attacked and not 
the sinner. To "take away the sin of 
the world," was the mission of Jesus. 
The sin of the world will be removed 
when we remove the cause of sin. When 
the world "shall be full of the knowledge 
of the Lord as the waters coyer the deep," 
the cause of sin will then have been re- 
moved. 

True "knowledge of the Lord" is the 
antidote of the poison of sin. 

"Vice ie a moster of such hideous mien 
That to be hated needs but to be seen." 

Remove the scales from the sinner's 
eves so that he may, like Saul, be brought 
to see and he will hate sin, as Paul hated 
it. The cause of sin is the want of moral 
growth and development. To cultivate 
the moral nature of man you must let 
the gentle showers of mercy fall upon 
him and the sunlight of love shine down 
upon him. You cannot convert a sinner 
&nd make him a saint by violent treat- 
ment. ,You peel all the bark off his 
moral nature by rough usage in jail and 
penitentiary, so that moral growth is 
thereafter impossible. You thus deaden 
the man morally, and make him dry up 
and wither like a girdled tree. The hu- 
man soul is a tender plant that needs 
watering with gentleness and placing in 
the sunlight of love. 

Let us take measures to leadJtbe crim- 
inal to God — to waken in him hopes of 
the here and the hereafter, to put in him 
a new heart, a new mind and new pur- 
poses. There are thousands of philan- 
thropic men, and millions, I may truly 
say, of philanthropic women who would 
love to devote their lives to the work of 
lifting up the weak, of reforming the 
vicious by christian gentleness and love, 
if only encouraged to do so by the public 
authorities. I see the time near when 
our people shall have stepped upon 
the higher plane of enlightenment — when 
men shall no longer be looking after 
their own selfish interests and "happi- 
ness," but shall be studying how they 
may, at whatever cost of personal sac- 
rifice and suffering, bring up those be- 
low them to the same plane of unselfish 
consecration to humanity as they them- 
selves occupy. Society wili then bt a 
family of love. The widows and father- 
less will no longer be in want ; and the 
unfortunate and erring, the weak and 
despairing shall be given a work to do, 
being surrounded, not by cruel torment- 
ers, but by angels of love and mercy. 
Give me a christian state and there is 
realized the New Jerusalem— Heaven 
come down to earth. My idea of heaven 
is of good angels constantly employed 
lifting up the lowly— a glorious school of 
righteousness in which the exalted spirits 



are [instructing those below them — 
" preaching to the spirits in prison."' 

No one should embrace any cause for 
any motive except the good he may do; 
nor should he falter in his course for 
hope of reward or even the fear of death, 
Enlist to fight and suffer. That is Christ- 
ianity— the christian warfare. Let one 
embrace Christ for the sake of following 
him [as did the humble disciple Father 
Damien.] I would rather be a water- 
bearer in perdition than to sit on a 
throne playing upon a golden harp in 
paradise. 

It is a perversion of the christian idea 
for one to seek happiness for himself. 
The thought uppermost with many, 
" How shall I win Heaven or how shall 
I escape Hell," is not a christian aspira- 
tion. It is grounded in love of self — not 
in love of God or love of man. The 
christian can only ask, " How can I do 
the most good /" The true christian's 
only motive to action is an uncontrol- 
able desire and passion to relieve suf- 
fering, and to lift up the down-trodden. 
God is love and the christian knows no 
motive but love. 

The wand of love touching the heart 
of the so-called "depraved" will cause 
the bright waters of true repentance to 
gush out of it, as the glassy current 
gushed out of the rock in the wilderness 
when touched by the rod of Moses. 
The worst man's heart, if we could only 
see it, would prove to be, I think, almost 
an exact duplicate of the best man's 
heart— only its fountains of sweet waters 
would be seeming] v dry. 

Is there any danger of our becoming 
too kind to one another ? of there aris- 
ing too great love between man 
and man? of our doing too much for 
our suffering fellow-men? What if all 
men should embrace each other as broth- 
ers? What if all should say " We will no 
longer forge chains and fetters, no longer 
manufacture cannons, guns, swords and 
pistols — no longer build jails and peni- 
tentiaries; but we will join to help and 
care for one another. We will build no 
more monitors and iron-cla,ds; but we 
will establish as\lums for the unfortu- 
nate, we will take our erring brothers 
and erring sisters lovingly by the hand 
and say to them ' We do not condemn 
thee; go and sin no more.' " 

When Eliza beth Fry entered Newgate 
the officers of the prison warned her that 
her life would be endangered ; but her 
kindness and love won the love of the 
unfortunate ones.* 



*The district nurse in the purlieus of White- 
chapel is a revered and privileged person. The 
roughs and sluggers of the foulest den?, hidden 
away in tortuous alleys and lanes, yield to her 
goodness and devotion. Where the" clergyman 
would be badly handled, where the policeman 
cannot go alone at night without endangering 
his li!e, the nurse on her mission of mercy can 
f reply enter at all times; for the most degraded 
and hardened criminal, seeing the badge of her 
office in her uniform, would make way respect- 



(98) 



"Within a short time," says her bio- 
grapher, "a very short time, the whole 
scene was marveously changed. Like 
the maniac of Geneseret, from whom the 
legion of devils had been cast out, these 
once wild a^d wretched creatures were 
seen neatly clothed, busily employed, 
arranged under the care of monitors 
with a matron at the head of themj com- 
paratively speaking, in their right minds. 
Numerous were the throngs of well edu- 
cated persons in that land who pressed 
after her from prison to prison, and hos- 
pital to hospital, in order to learn from 
her example, the lesson of doing good to 
the most degraded and sorrowful of 
mankind." It only requires that we 
open the pages of history and read the 
brief record of philanthropy (and it will 
not take long to read the little regarding 
it; for the records of bloodshed and 
cruelty make up the bulk of human 
history, while a short page contains 
about all that is said of the work of the 
philanthropic— a divine book was writ- 
ten, it is ti u ', giving a brief account of 
Jesus' surer ative work of love, in the 
three years of his active ministry, on 
our planet - And I am sorry to have to 
confess that a very diminutive scroll 
tells all that his disciples have done, up 
to this hour following in his footsteps) . 
I say that it requires only that we read 
this short record to be convinced that 
love can reform the erring, and that lo ve 
will transform the world into an Eden 
of bliss. 

IV. Count Rumford 's Successful Ex- 
periment. 

Benjamin Thompson (better known as 
Count Eumford) was born in Woburn, 
Massachusetts, March 26, 1753. By an 
accident of good fortune he became a 
resident of Bavaria, a German princi- 
pality, in the year 1784. The elector of 
that principality at that time was 
Charles Theodore— a man of enlightened 
mind, whose ambition was to elevate 
the state and add to the happiness of the 
people over whom he reigned. He ap- 
pointed Thompson (who received from 
him the title of Count Rumford) as his 
chief minister of reform, directing him to 
rectify whatever was wrong in public 
affairs. After reforming the army and 
improving immeasurable the condition 
of the people generally, ' he turned his 
attention especially to the unemployed 

fully, and the lowest and most abandoned wo- 
man would find no ribald word at her command 
for one who comes thne in the spirit of devotion 
and self-sacrifice. I have the testimony of 
a nurse of long experience that, in her profes- 
sional drets, she would not fear to enter rhe 
worst Whitechapel den at any hour of day 
or night. If a hand were raised to harm her, a 
thousand would fly to her defence. The sacred 
cause she represents can hold in awe the brutal 
and depraved instincts of the lowest class of 
human beings, thus showing where the work of 
reedmption must begin, and how it is to be carried 
on successfully. — Auousta Larnbd. (Leaves 
r o« a Foreign Note Book.) 



poor and friendless outcasts. His bio- 
grapher says : 

"The number of itinerant beggars of 
both sexes and all ages, as well foreign 
as native, who strolled about the coun- 
try in all directions, levying contribu- 
tions upon the industrious inhabitants, 
stealing and robbing and leading a life ot 
indolence and the most shameless de- 
bauchery, was quite incredible." Count 
Rumford put an end to this evil by es- 
tablishing, with the aid of state funds, 
manufactories, furnishing employment 
to all these people able to work, and by 
organizing a system of public support of 
all the deserving and helpless poor. Two 
thousand six hundred of both sexes and 
various agi-s were gathered into one great 
industrial establishment in Munich and 
put to work in a single week after the 
doors of the manufactory were first 
opened. This institution was called the 
Military Work-House, because it was 
fitted up with money from the miliatry 
chest and was designed chiefly to supply 
the army with clothing,]etc. Yet it was a 
vast shop of all-work. A suitable build- 
ing was fitted up ; a large kitchen and 
large eating room, commodious bake 
house, workshops for carpenters, smiths, 
turners, and such other mechanics, were 
established and furnished with tools. 
Large halls were fitted up for spinners 
of hemp, spinners of flax, for spinners of 
cotton, for spinners of wool and for 
spinners of worsted ; and adjoining each 
hall a small room was fitted up for a 
clerk or inspector of the hall. Halls were 
likewise fitted up for weaveis Of 
woolens, weavers of serges and 
shalloons, for linen weavers, for 
weavers of cotton goods and for stock- 
ing weavers ; and workshops were pro- 
vided for clothiers, cloth-shearers, dyers, 
saddlers, besides rooms for wool-sorters, 
wool-carders, wool-combers, knitters, 
seamstresses, etc. Magazines were fitted 
up for finished manufactures as for raw 
materials and rooms for counting houses, 
store rooms for kitchen and bake-house, 
and dwelling rooms for the inspectors and 
other officers. The whole edifice, which 
was very extensive, was fitted up in the 
neatest manner possible. In doing this 
even the external appearance of the 
building was attended to. It was hand- 
somely painted without and within, and 
pains were taken to give it an air of ele- 
gance as well as of neatness and cleanli- 
ness. The whole establishment was 
swept twice a day. Great pains were 
taken to promote the comfort of the 
people while at work, and to render the 
work agreeable to them. The rooms 
were well warmed in winter, well ventil- 
ated, pleasant and healthful all the time. 
As far as elegance was possible in halls 
devoted to work it was consulted, and 
the kindest usage was the order of the 
institution. The people arrived at the 
establishment at a fixed hour in the 
morning ; they continued at their work 



( 99 ) 



till the hour of dinner, when they re- 
paired to the dining hall, where they were 
turnished with a good dinner of white 
bread and fine rich soup, and after some 
hours of further work, they were dis- 
missed as from any other manufactory, 
and had all the rest of the time at their 
own disposal. Besides the dinner hour, 
which was allowed as relaxation to all 
in the establishment, two additional 
hours, one in the morning and the other 
in the afternoon, were allowed to the 
younger workers, during which they as- 
sembled in one hall and were taught 
reading, writing and arithmetic by a mas- 
ter paid for the purpose; and neither they 
nor the adults were ovet- worked. All re- 
ceived good wages, which were regularly 
paid. 

"By constant practice the workers soon 
became expert in their several callings, 
and in a short time it was no longer a 
mere benevolent institution ; but the 
workers fully earned their wages. In 
-the sixth year of its existence the de- 
mand upon it for goods amounted to 
half a million of florins, and the net 
profits to the State of the manufactory 
for the six vears were one hundred 
thousand florins." 

On the merits of the institution in re- 
claiming the formerly loathsome, vicious 
and wretched, to cleanliness, propriety, 
happiness (the point I have in view to 
illustrate) hear the words of Count Rum- 
ford himself. After alluding to the ex- 
pertness of the various workers, he pro- 
ceeds; "But what was quite surprising, 
and at the same time interesting in the 
highest degree, was the apparent and 
rapid change which was produced in 
their manners. The kind usage they 
met with, and the comforts they en- 
joyed, seemed to have softened their 
hearts and awakened in them sentiments 
as new and surprising to themselves as 
they were interesting to those about 
them. The melancholy gloom of misery, 
the air of uneasiness and embarrassment, 
disappeared little by little from their 
countenances and were succeeded by a 
timid dawn of cheerfulness, rendered 
most exquisitely interesting by a certain 
mixture of silent gratitude, which no 
language can describe. In the infancy of 
the establishment, when these poor crea- 
tures were first brought together, I used 
very frequently," he says "to visit them, 
to speak kindly to them and to encour- 
age them ; and I seldom passed through 
the hall where they were at work with- 
out being witness to the most moving 
scenes. Objects formerly the most mis- 
erable and wretched, whom I had seen 
for years as beggars in the streets; 
young women, perhaps the unhappy 
Victims of seduction, who having lost 
their reputation and being turned adrift 
in the world without a friend and with- 
out a home, were reduced to the neces- 
sity of begging to sustain a miserable 
existence, now recognized me as their 

LefC. 



benefactor, and with tears dropping fast 
from their cheeks, continued their work 
in the most expressive silence. If they 
were asked what the matter was with 
them their answer was 'nichtz' (noth- 
ing) accompanied with a look of affec- 
tionate regard and gratitude so touch- 
ing as frequently to draw tears from the 
most insensible of the bystanders. Will 
it be reckoned vanity," he continues " if I 
mention the concern which the poor of 
Munich expressed in so affecting a man- 
ner when I was dangerously ill?— that 
they went publicly in a body in proces- 
sion to the Cathedral church where they 
had divine service performed and put up 
prayers for my recovery; that four 
years afterward on hearing that I was 
again dangerously ill at Naples, they, of 
their own accord, set apart an hour each 
evening after they had finished their 
work in the military workhouse, to pray 
for me, a private person, a Protestant!" 
Here was a successful practical solu- 
tion of the great problem of the redemp- 
tion of the people of a christian city and 
state from poverty and its resultant 
crime and misery, worked out a century 
ago by a benign German prince and his 
enlightened American adviser. If the 
clergy of Christendom since that day, had 
interested themselves in these great mat- 
ters affecting the poor, as Jesus did 
while on earth, this noble example 
would not have been lost to the world 
for a hundred years ; but it would by 
this time have been followed by every civ- 
ilized state on earth, and poverty and 
consequent crime, and suffering, would 
to-day be practically put an end to in 
Christendom. 

V. Oua Laws Outgrown. 

Truly, Jesus interested himself in the 
affairs of the people among whom he 
walked. He even interfered to disperse 
a mob that had assembled to stone an 
erring woman to death. A dangerous 
experiment we would reckon it now, to 
try to break up a mob with the use of 
only kindly spoken words of reason as 
weapons, when regiments of national 
guards, armed with breech-loading rifles 
and Gatling guns, quail before their fury. 
But a word of genuine christian love and 
truth is mightier than an army .with 
banners. 

Why have we mob rule to-day in our 
country? The answer is: Our' laws are 
outgrown. The gentle teachings of 
Christianity have lifted the masses 
above the barbarism of the mediaeval 
laws that yet mar our statute books 
and disgrace our country and age. 

Whittier says : 
<l Thank God that I have lived to see the time 
When the great truth at last begins to find 
At utterance from the deep heart of mankind, 
Earnest and clear, that all revenge is crime, 
That man is holier than a creed— that all 
Restraint upon him must consult his good, 
Hope's suDshine linger in his prison wall 
And love looks in upon his solitutde. 



-.-- 



(100 ) 



The beautiful lesson which the Saviour taught 
Through long dark centuries its way hath 

wrought 
Into the common mind and popular thought; 
And words to which by Galilee's lake shore 
The humble fishers listen with hushed oar, 
Have found an echo in the general heart 
And of the public faith become a living part.' 

So that now when men are tried for 
erime the jury pities them, since the pun- 
ishments are barbarous, of the past, of 
the dark ages, too cruel to be inflicted 
by a people with christian training, and 
the guilty are let go scot free, and ignor- 
ant, brutal mobs are left again to pelt 
them with stones, no Saviour being near 
to say, "He that is without sin among 
you let him first cast a stone at her." 
Nor do our laws yefc step in and declare, 
"Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin 
no more." 

Let us have Christian and not Pagan 
laws, and they will be enforced. Let us 
have labor-reform schools for criminals, 
and let Sisters and Brothers of Mercy 
be allowed to go, as Elizabeth Fry went 
to Newgate, and labor among the fallen 
to lift them up, and juries will no longer 
hesitate to convict the guilty. Justice 
will be administered when Justice and 
Mercy walk hand in hand. Then there 
will be no longer occasion for mobs. 
lhey will disperse; for the voice of Jesus 
will touch their hearts and consciences 
who come to throw stones. 

VI. Save tee Outcasts. 

Of all the miserable beings on earth 
those are most to be pitied who, in the 
weakness of inexperienced youth, are 
led astray, and then cast out where 
the is no hope- -abandoned! Accursed be 
that most hateful word ! It ought to be 
expunged from the human vocabulary ! 
It never ought to be uttered ! Let it dis- 
appear with the going out of the nine- 
teenth century, along with war, along 
with cruelty., along with barbarity. I 



am commanded in my Bible that I love^ 
and that I take as the rule and guide of 
my Mfe, actions, sentiments and love ot 
man and woman — I am commanded to 
love my neighbor as myself. I shall, 
therefore, feel toward my neighbor's 
child as towards my ©wn. My own child 
I will never abandon, ibut will everlast- 
ingly cling to her with a tenacity super- 
human : and I will never abandon any 
human being. 

We must not condemn to despair the 
unfortunate daughters of sorrowing 
parents; but we must rescue them from 
misery — placing them in happy asylums, 
and pleasant schools, where when re- 
pentant, they may find hope — invite 
them to look joyfully upward, and for- 
ward to a happy future, they having 
buried their bad thoughts and bad ac- 
tions so depp down underground that 
the loudest blast of Gabriel's trumpet 
will not resurrect them again as even 
shadowy remembrances. The united 
christian people of our country can pro- 
claim glad freedom to the enslaved of 
sin, can provide pleasant homes and re- 
munerative work for the repentant, can 
and will crystal] ze the Sermon of Jesus 
on the Mount in the laws and institu- 
tions of our beloved country, designed 
by providence to make free, by her ex- 
ample, the whole world, from the thrall- 
dorn of kings, and from tyranny of all 
kinds— to emancipate labor— to set the 
imprisoned in the world's bastiles 
all at liberty, and to inaugurate the 
blissful f reign of Jesus Christ on earth. 
She will 

"King out old shapes of foul disease, 
Ring out the narrowing lust oi gold, 
Rins out th« thousand wars of old, 
Ring in the thousand years of peace." 

" Ring in the valiant man and free, — 
The larger heart, the kindlier hand; 
Ring out the darkness of the land — 
Ring in the Christ that is to be." 



ESSAY XIY.— AFTER-THOUGHTS. 



FROM MY PRIVATE JOURNAL. 



I. A Word of Protest. 

Friday Nov. 11, 9 a. m., 1887. 
Can Illinois in 1887 afford to repeat 
the folly of Virginia, in 1859, and Gov- 
ernor Oglesby the mistake of Governor 
Wise? As sure as it be done will history 
repeat itself. As John Brown became 
the saint and martyr of the cause of 
chattel slave emancipation, so will the 
men sacrificed on the gibbets to-day in 
Chicago, be finally enshrined in the 
hearts of mankind as saints and martyrs 
of the cause of wage-slave emancipation. 
workingmen, are ye dumb ! O ye 
mighty labor unions of America , will ye 



utter no word of protest against this 
horrible barbarity ! 

9 p. m. — The wire brought the sad, sad 
news at noon to-day. Four victims were 
offered a sacrifice on the altar of liberty. 
Happy men ! Children of Immortality !' 
Your names are now written indelibly 
on the same immortal scroll with those 
of Raleigh, Sidney, Vane, Emmett and 
John Brown ! The patriot may well 
envy you your glorious lot; but he 
blushes for shame that his country has 
to answer for this barbarity — this fear- 
ful crime committed in the name of law, 
so near the close of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. 



■^^■■^■■■■■■■■■■■■■i 



(101) 



II. "Conspiracy Against Society.' 



Saturday, Nov. 12. 

Is "Conspiracy against society" a new 
crime? No ; it is a new name for an old, 
obsolete one. Our British ancestors 
would have called it "sedition," or "trea- 
son." Why is a new name given it now? 
Because, under our laws, there is no such 
crime as "sedition." The word is not 
found in the statute books of any state; 
and the Constitution of the United 
States, and that of each of the states, 
say: "Treason shall consist only in 
levying- war, or in adhering to the enemy, 
giving him aid and comfort." " No per- 
son," says the sacred instrument, the 
national constitution, "shall be con- 
victed of treason, unless on the testi- 
mony of two witnesses to the same overt 
act, or on confession in open court." 
This was plainly intended to prevent 
men from being subject to punishment, 
in this free country, under the American 
flag, for the obsolete crime of "sedition," 
or, as now defined, "Conspiracy against 
society." Sedition laws were passed by 
theFederalists during the administration 
of the elder Adams, it is true. But those 
laws were so contrary to the genius of 
our institutions— so abhorrent to the 
popular idea of liberty in that day— as 
to utterly kill and destroy forever the 
party that passed them, and turn the 
government over to the Anti-Federalists 
— the followers of Thomas Jefferson. 

Has Federalism again raised its ser- 
pent head? Seditionlaws have not been 
passed, it is true; but the corrupt 
courts have reached that dignity 
(or degradation rather), rendering the 
passage of "sedition laws," or any 
other laws, unnecessary. They have, 
at the bidding of monopoly, trampled 
under their dirty feet the Constitution 
of the United States and that of each 
and every state of the Union, and they 
have now become absolute dictators — 
the supreme arbiters of our liberties and 
our lives— destroying the safeguards of 
our government. 

III. The Press Befogged. 

The Iowa State Register, in this morn- 
ing's issue, voices the sentiment of the 
newspaper fraternity generally in an 
editorial article entitled "The Crime of 
Conspiracy." That great and influential 
western journal says : " The courts have 
rendered service to society and have 
strengthened their own position, in the 
attitude they have taken with regard to 
the crime of conspiracy. Fifty years 
ago such a thing as the execution of four 
men for conspiracy against society 
would have been unheard of, for the rea- 
son that crimes of that character were 
then uncommon. But with the growth 
of the age and the perils and dangers 
that come with increasing population 
&nd the dissemination of dangerous doc- 



trines of the new socialistic and anarch- 
istic creeds, the courts are compelled to 
adjust themselves to the changed condi- 
tion of things. They take a step for- 
ward in protecting the rights of man- 
kind, when they define conspiracy to 
commit murder, or to make war upon 
society, as criminal an offense as the 
commission of the act itself." 

The author of the above paragraph is 
my personal friend, "faithful and just 
to me;" and though I would willingly 
sacrifice my right hand, or even my life 
itself if need be, in his personal defense, 
yet I will kindly criticise his opinions, 
expressed publicly in print in his great 
journal, with the same freedom of utter- 
ance and devotion to truth and liberty, 
and love for him personally, as I would 
wish him to make use of in reviewing my 
humble utterances. In doing so I would 
not violate the obligations of saered 
friendship ; but only discharge an imper- 
ative duty to my country, to humanity, 
and to the God of justice and righteous- 
ness. 

" Fifty years ago the execution," (he 
correctly says,) " of four men for con- 
spiracy against society would have been 
unheard of." Yes, indeed such a thing 
was unheard of in our country for more 
than a century until the eleventh day of 
Nov., 1887. "The dissemination of dan- 
gerous doctrines of those new socialistic 
and anarchistic creeds," my friend says, 
"have compelled the courts to adjust 
themselves in the changed condition ol 
things.'" I thought always that courts 
had no alternative ; but were bound by 
oath to follow a prescribed path, to in- 
terpret the laws according to their true 
meaning and in conformity with the 
Constitution of the United States. I 
thought, too, that we had got at least 
two hundred years past the time of be- 
ing alarmed at, and punishing men for, 
the "dissemination of dangerous doe- 
trines," since Roger Williams proclaimed 
in 1631 "The civil magistrate should 
punish guilt, but never control opinion;" 
since he proclaimed the "equality ©f 
opinions before the law." The more 
erroneous the opinions of our misguided 
Anarchist brethren, the more easy it 
will be (in the language of the articles of 
government of the Puritan Common- 
wealth of England, 1649) " to win them 
by sound doctrine and the example of a 
good conversation." 

But " now the courts take a step for- 
ward," my friend says, (backward five 
hundred years, I say) " in protecting the 
rights of mankind," he says, (in uphold- 
ing the tyranny of monopolists, I say); 
"have rendered service to society," he 
says, (have destroyed our liberty, I 
say); "have strengthened their position," 
he says, (have committed harikari, I 
say). "Conspiracy to commit (specific 
murder has always been considered by 
the courts {after the commission of the 
deed) as criminal as the act itself ;" and 



( 102) 



i 



to hang men, (after the" act of murder 
had been committed,) as particeps crim- 
inis for conspiracy, was more common 
fifty years ago than now, because cap- 
ital punishment was then more common. 
But a direct connection had always to 
be proven, till now, between the con- 
spiracy and the act of murder. This 
could not possibly be done in the case of 
the Chicago Anarchists before it was 
known who threw the bomb, before it 
was known whether it was thrown by an 
"Anarchist", or by a so-called "detec- 
tive," or by a crazy person, like her who 
shot O'Donovan Rossa in New York, 
which is not known, "even unto this 
day." 

IV. Let us Reason Together. 

You may believe it right to kill men in 
war; but every man killed in war you 
would not like to believe yourself the 
murderer of, because of your opinions, as 
the Illinois judges have defined you 
legally to be. Some ultra patriot, like 
General Joseph Warren, or Patrick 
Henry of old, may believe it right to kill 
armed men, when they charge in plat- 
toons for the purpose of breaking up 
peaceable meetings of the people, as is 
done in Ireland, and as was done in 
Chicago May 4, 1886. And I will pause 
right here to remark that if it ever could 
be right to slay armed men (but I be- 
lieve it is never right to willfully or 
avoidably take human life) it would be 
right under such circumstances. As 
a reasonable being I am logically com- 
pelled to admit that if it is right to 
"shoot him on the spot" who "hauls 
down the American Flag" (vide order of 
Gen. Dix, 1861,) it is right, yea, if pos- 
sible, even more than a right to "shoot 
him on the spot," with dynamite bombs 
or any other deadly weapons, who 
would destroy the freedom of assembly 
and the freedom of speech in this or any 
other country, by force of arms. I 
speak now as an American voicing 
American ideas and sentiments ; but, let 
the reader understand distinctly, not to 
endorse in the slightest degree any vio- 
lent sentiments, either of Gen. Dix, or of 
the Anarchists, as my own personal 
views or feelings on the subject. I only 
appeal now for fair play for oppressed 
■ workingmen— to Americans who?e ances- 
tor* declared and believed as a religious 
tenet that "Rebellion to tyrants is obe- 
dience to God ;" and who chose as the 
motto of the coat of arms, of the native 
state of Washington, Jefferson and Pat- 
rick Henry, the terrible sentiment — "Sic 
semper tyrmnnia" — which, as illustrated 
on the seal of Virginia, means "Death 
always to tyrants." 

While ths ultra patriot, for holding 
these venerable beliefs ©f his honored 
forefathers, would not, it is true, be 
liable to extradition and execution in 
Great Britain for murder, though police- 



men were killed in a diabolical attempt 
to break up a Land League meeting by 
force of arms at Kilkenny, Ireland (for 
the reason that even "castle" judges 
would not so decide); yet if policemen 
be killed in a diabolical attempt by force' 
of arms to break up a peaceable meeting 
of workingmen in Chicago, Illinois, he is 
liable to be hung here for so believing, 
because Illinois judges have thus falsely 
interpreted American law to mean. 

I declare as logical, and I appeal for r 
confirmation of the truth and fairness ■' 
of the argument, to the candor of all ' 
students of American history and Amer- 
ican law, tha.t the policemen who charged 
upon the Haymarket meeting with arms 
in their tyrannous hands for the avowed 
purpose of breaking up the assembly. ' 
committed a greater crime against the 
laws of this country, and the Spirit of 
our free institutions, according to the 
consecrated beliefs of our venerated fore- 
fathers, than did the mau, (orwoman, as 
the case may be), who threw the bomb — 
if not thrown by a "detective;" for, 
(leaving out of the question the idea 
that the person was crazy who threw it, 
or that it was thrown by a detective at 
the command of monopoly to bring 
odium on the worker's and end a great 
strike, as many believe it was) it was 
evidently thrown in defence of constitu- 
tional rights, menaced by armed men, 
in defence of freedom of speech and 
freedom of assembly, and in obedi- 
ence to the time-honored maxims 
of our Puritan ancestors, and of the 
Virginia buckskins, whom we are proud 
to call our "forefathers;" and hence it 
was as justifiable as the battles of Lex- 
ington and Bunker Hill; yea, and ex- 
actly paralell to them, and may in the 
end, prove to be as important in its 
consequences to the future freedom of 
America, bringing us back to a consid- 
eration of first principles, and demotion 
to inalienable rights, that we had about 
lost sight of in our blasphemous worship 
of Mammon and our shemeful subjec- 
tion to his high priests. 

I declare, also, and I appeal to the 
reason and candor of all thinking and 
conscientious men for their unqualified 
approval of the statement, as in accord- 
ance with truth and right, that when 
men arm, form in battle array and 
march with loaded guns in their hand* 
upon a crowd of people, peaceably, and 
hence lawfully assembled, it would seem 
that they have come as soldiers expect- 
ing battle; for most men will fight for 
their just rights. If battle they naeefc, 
what have they to complain of? Have 
they not got what they came for? "He 
that taketh the sword shall perish by 
it," the Bible says, and lam not permit- 
ted to dispute the sacred text. Further- 
more, I have no desire to dispute it, and 
I will not dispute it to bolster up ac- 
cursed tyranny; kence I am not pre-< 
pared to say t&at they have not reaped 



(103) 



the just reward of their rashness— "dy- 
ing as the fool dieth" if policemen be 
killed in an armed endeavor to destroy 
popular liberty— in a diabolical effort to 
break up, by force of arms, free assem- 
blies of the people whether they be An- 
archists or Republicans, Germans or 
Americans, listening peaceably to public 
speeches, as the constitution and the 
laws of our country allow. Besides, who 
will mourn for them? No American pa- 
triot can be expected to do so, except 
m pity for the wives and little children 
of the slain, as our fathers must have 
mourned for the unfortunate Brit- 
ish regulars killed at Lexington and 
Bunker Hill; nor are they worthy of even 
as much pity and regard as TJhe slaught- 
ered British red-coats were; for a police- 
man can resign his office at will , and he 
is not, therefore, compelled to serve 
against his conscientious scruples; while 
a private soldier in the army of England 
cannot help himself, but must obey the 
orders of his superiors. 

V. Popular Rights. 

The reader may be surprised at such 
plain talk by me at this nour, when all 
freemen, seem dazed and (the enemy be- 
lieves and exultantly proclaims) ' 'cowed" 
by the hideous exhibition of a medi- 
aeval horror so near the close of the 
nineteenth century, in tke great and 
peaceful valley of the west. But I shall 
(should occasion prompt) , speak even 
more plainly still, as is the bounden 
duty of an American patriot to give ex- 
pression to his true beliefs, when the 
liberties of his country are threatened, 
which now they are, as they have never 
before for a hundred years, been threat- 
ened. 

If General Sickels.,1 contend, was justi- 
fiable (and the law sustained him) for 
shooting down, on the public streets of 
Washington, the seducer of his wife, the 
American citizen is doubly justifiable for 
shooting down on the public streets of 
Chicago, or any where else, the minions 
of capitalistic tyranny, who assail, by 
force of arms, public deliberative meet- 
ings legally assembled, as the Haymarket 
meeting was assailed by an armed band 
to be broken up and dispersed, contrary 
to the constitution 6t the American re- 
public, and contrary to the constitu- 
tions of the thirty-nine states of the 
Union, and contrary to all the laws and 
traditions held sacred by sixty millions 
•f people. We cannot be too jealous of 
•W liberties. The breaking up of " An- 
areniat" meetings by force of arms, is 
*»ly a prelude to the breaking up of 
Democrat and Republican deliberative 
meetings in the same way, and especially 
of workingmen's meetings, when called to 
oppose the tyranny of capital, and to 
the utter extinction of popular liberty 
in the United States as a "military 
necessity." 



VI. The Limits of Popular Forbear- 
ance. 

It cannot be too plainly stated nor 
too deeply impressed on the mad minds 
of the Anglo-American capitalists, that 
though the people of this country never 
bite unless they are very heavily trod 
upon, yet, when too harshly ground un- 
der the iron heels of tyranny, there has 
ever been a limitation to their patient 
endurance of unbearable wrong; and it 
might as well be said right here as any 
where else, for it must be distinctly de- 
clared, and heard by the enemy and 
heeded, that unwonted interference with 
the freedom of speech and of assembly 
marks the outmost bounds of that limi- 
tation! No insurance associations, 
knowing the American character, will 
take risks on the lives of policemen that 
attempt by force of arms to break up 
public deliberative meetings in the United 
States of America, under the stars and 
stripes. Such meetings cannot be legally 
"proclaimed," on this side of the Atlan- 
tic Ocean, by chiefs of police, mayors of 
cities, governors of states, or by the Presi- 
dent of the United States himself; unless 
under martial law legally declared in the 
time of actual war. This the American 
people know. The rights of free speech 
and of free assembly will therefore be 
maintained at all hazards in time of 
peace; nor will the people be intimidated 
by any number of illegal executions of 
the friends of freedom for imaginary 
crimes, to acquiesce tamely in the de- 
struction oi their constitutional rights 
and liberties. The breaking up of pub- 
lic meetings by armed bands of police- 
men is actual war against the people, 
as clearly and positively war as existed 
at the time when the patriotic Virginia 
orator exclaimed, "every gale that 
sweeps from the north brings to our 
ears the clash of resounding arms;" and 
the officials who thus, by force of arms, 
interfere with the rights of free assembly 
and free speech to destroy them, do, 
most clearly, commit the overt act of 
treason. 

The throwing of dynamite bombs into 
the armed ranks of policemen in the act 
of dispersing deliberate meetings peace- 
fully conducted, would be as justifiable 
an act, I mean to say, as was the bloody 
resistance made by our fathers to British 
tyranny at Lexington, were there no 
hope of redress before the courts, or 
through the peaceful ballot; and if en- 
tire armed bands and batallions of the 
bloodhounds of corporate tyranny 
should be annihilated, on such occasions, 
by an outraged populace, as a last re- 
sort and means of defense of the rights of 
free assembly and free speech, it were no 
worse than the wholesale killing by our 
fathers of the two hundred and seventy- 
three dutiful British soldiers on their 
retreat from Concord and Lexington to 
Boston. 



(104) 



The transparent meaning of the judi- 
cial murders at Chicago, is, that whoever 
to-day declares his faith in the doctrines 
of the Declaration of American Inde- 
pendence of 1776 is liable to be hung for 
"conspiracy against society;" because 
"whenever," says that immortal instru- 
ment, "any form of government becomes 
destructive of the rights of life, liberty 
and the pursuit of happiness, it is the 
right of the people, it is their duty, to 
alter or abolish it and to institute new 
government, laying its foundation in 
the consent of the governed." How 
abolish it? By force of arms, if com- 
pelled to do so as a last resort, as our 
fathers were? Whoever advocates this 
idea is now liable to be hung, I repeat, 
for the new crime of "conspiracy against 
society," and that, too, while Jefferson 
Davis ( to the everlasting honor of the 
magnanimous American nation) still 
lives ! 

VII. The Satraps of Greed. 

Must it be said—" we have no laws to- 
day—we have no republic ?" What have 
we? Two hundred and fifty thousand 
well drilled national guards, and other 
thousands of well drilled mercenary 
"detectives" and policemen, standing 
with Gatlmg guns, rifles, revolvers and 
halters in their bloody hands, ready to 
execute the decrees of ermined tyrants, 
misnamed "judges," acting as the sa- 
traps of corporate greed. These are 
hounded on by newspaper editors, who 
vainly imagine that they "create public 
opinion," and that they can make the 
people applaud when chains and fetters 
are being riveted upon their ankles and 
wrists, and gibbets are being erected to 
hang them on, for exercising the blood- 
bought rights of free speech and free 
assembly, can make them rejoice at the 
fiendish strangling to death of liberty- 
loving men for the expression of honest 
opinions and beliefs, not known to be 
criminal for more than two hundred 
years in America, until defined as "con- 
spiracy against society" by corpora- 
tion-controlled judges months after the 
objectionable (to tyrants) utterances 
had been made — ex post facto decisions, 
creating law, barbarous law— unknown 
to our statutes, foreign to our constitu- 
tions, previously undefined by our courts 
and wholly subversive of our most 
sacred liberties — decisions that no judge, 
even in England, would ever have dared 
to make, except during the tyrannical 
reigns of Charles the First and James 
the Second. But King Charles, and 
other infamous tyrants of that period 
were beheaded by an indignant people 
for the crimes against liberty and law 
they had committed. No wonder (know- 
ing this history and the fate of Jeffries) 
that the Illinois judge of the superior 



court " turned pale and trembled" whea 
announcing his tyrannical decree ! 

I believe that the recreant judges and 
the weak-minded Governor of Illinois (if 
the law of our country was strictly, 
fairly, honestly and correctly interpre- 
ted and enforced), would all be legally 
subject to the death penalty for treason 
and murder, they having committed 
the overt act of treason, by "levying 
actual war against the people," by tak- 
ing the lives of men contrary to all 
known law, by dest roymg the safeguards 
of life and liberty, by breaking down the 
bulwarks of common justice, by over- 
throwing the freedom of speech and of 
the press, by taking from us, annihilat- 
ing at one fell stroke of tyranny, all that 
the Hathers gave us that is worth the 
preserving. What is the Union wortk 
without liberty? It is worth nothing. 
In the illuminated mind of the great 
Webster "liberty and Union" are bound 
fast together "now and forever one 
and inseperable." 

If I sanctioned the mad action of those 
detestable judges, and of that imbecile 
Governor of Illinois, I would not dare 
to look out of doors at night, lest I beheld 
the ghosts of Warren, Lincoln and Johm 
Brown shaking at me their gory loeke 
and shrieking in my ears, " Thou did'st 
it." My heart and my mind, instructed 
by a devoted and careful study, for over 
forty years, of my country's history, 
both tell me that the firing on Fort 
Sumter pales in importance before that 
mad deed, which is awakening millions 
of earnest men and earnest women to 
profoundest thought. From this day om 
there will be but two parties in our coun- 
try—Sons and Daughters of Liberty and 
infamous Tories — the defenders of in- 
alienable rights and the enemies of pop- 
ular liberty, as of old. 

I abhor alike the violent doctrines of 
the German Anarchists and of the advo- 
cates of coercion, and war, and with ae 
deep an abhorrence, I may truly say, as 
our ancestors in Great Britain did th? 
opposing creeds of Catholic, Protestant 
and Dissenter, when they burnt eaek 
other alternately a? each faction got the 
power, in hecatombs at the stake — ae 
our Puritan Fathers, in New England, 
did the doctrines of the Quakers, when 
they cut off their ears and executed 
them on the gallows on Boston C&*»- 
mon; but I am a disciple of Roger Will- 
iams, Lord Baltimore and William Penn; 
I believe in the toleration of opinion* 
and beliefs, religious and political; and 
(as our fathers have stated it, in the 
Constitution of the United States) I 
would condemn men for deeds only, and 
not for words, "on the testimony of at 
least two witnesses to the same overt 
act, or on confession in open couit;" 
and for no offence whatever would I 
sanction the death penalty. 



k 



T*r 



(105 ) 



VIII. Time to Call a Halt. 



January, 17, 1889. 
The police of Chicago (warranted in 
doing so, they supposed, by the rulings 
of the Illinois courts condemning to 
death for "conspiracy against society," 
i. e. for so-called "Anarchist opinions," 
the Hay Market quaternian of martyrs), 
finally reached a point in their mad 
career of tyranny and disregard of pop- 
ular rights, where, in order that the last 
spark of liberty might not be extinguish- 
ed in that corporation-controlled city, 
it became necessary for the judge of the 
court to call a halt. As a specimen of 
police anarchy, yea, of downright insan- 
ity, I clip the following from an Asso- 
ciated Press dispatch dated Chicago, 111., 
Dec. 9, 1888. 

The dispatch says: "Police Chief 
Hubbard issued an order holding nearly 
all the city police of 1500 men in re- 
serve at various stations ready to be 
called at any moment. When asked 
what he purposed to do, Chief Hubbard 
•aid: 'We positively will not allow 
any more Anarchist meetings. I am 
making a full list of all saloons where An- 
archists congregate, and willrecommend 
the mayor that licenses be revoked. 
There will be no tampering, nor any hes- 
itancy from this time out. Any Anarch- 
ist meeting will be broken up and pre- 
vented. I do not think they want to 
fight very badlv; but if they do they can 
have all they want.' In the afternoon 
Chief Hubbard summoned the propri- 
etors of Greef s Hall at 54 West Lake 
street, and those at 600 Blue Island 
avenue. The Chief told them emphat- 
ically that they must allow no further 
Meetings of Anarchists in their halls. 
The proprietors commenced to argue 
that the meetings were peaceable, but 
were interrupted by the Chief, with the 
. intimation that he would not argue 
that question. Whether the meetings 
were peaceable or not made no differ- 
ence. They were held for the dissem- 
ination of lawless and incendiary ideas 
and must be abolished." 

An Anarchist Bund { society) appealed 
t« the court for redress. Judge Tuley 
spoke in the same voice as that which 
resounded more than a century ago in 
the halls of the House of Burgesses of 
Virginia, when Patrick Henry uttered 
kis immortal plea for liberty. *He spoke 
in the same patriotic tones as did the 
ancient Tully when he thundered on 
the Eomau Forum against Mark An- 
tony. I trust that his words may not, 
like those of the Roman patriot, be the 
last grand protest against tyranny, pre- 
cedent to the downfall of the republic, 
the agonizing wail of expiring liberty; 
but, rather like those of Patrick Henry, 
"the presage of a new birth of freedom. 
I heard Governor Larrabee declare to- 
day in a speech before a convention of 
Iowa jobbers, in the capitol at Des 



Moines: "Railroad men have been ac" 
customed to obey only such laws as 
they found convenient to obey." 

Here is anarchism, and the only an- 
archism we have any reason to fear. It 
is the Corporation Anarchists who have 
been setting bloodhounds on the track 
of the friends of popular liberty for 
years. It is Corporation Anarchists that 
the police force of Chicago serve, and in 
whose interest they have attempted to 
destroy popular liberty — depriving the 
people' of the right of free speech and 
peaceable assembly— a blood-bought 
right. 

Judge Tuley states the case in the fol- 
lowing words. He says: "I find n© 
reason to differ from the Master in 
Chancery in his conclusion that the evi- 
dence adduced fails to show that the 
proposed assemblage was for an unlaw- 
ful purpose, because of the condition of 
the membership that 'only persons of 
reputable character, who declare for the 
abolition of the inhuman wage system, 
can become members.' The solicitor is 
in error in the supposition that the law 
upholds or demands any particular sys- 
tem of carrying on industrial enter- 
prises. The Master reports that there 
was no evidence to show the meaning of 
the declaration that the society favors 
the abolition of the capitalistic system 
of exploitation nor of the purpose 'to 
assist in the fight against exploitation.' 
The word 'exploitation/ is a Frenck 
word for which we have no precise equiv- 
alent. I understand the object intended 
is opposition to the present system of 
using capital. That is to say, capital 
shall be so used that labor will receive a 
greater share of the combined earnings 
of labor and capital than at present, 
and that capital shall not be used so as 
to oppress the people by combinations 
and monopolies. I may be mistaken in 
my interpretation, but whatever may 
be the meaning, the object is to be ac- 
complished by the enlightenment and 
education of the masses. I find no law 
which prohibits the formation of socie- 
ties for such a purpose. The members 
of the society may seek to disseminate 
views or principles which in the opinion 
of the great majority of our citizens a^?e 
detrimental to the rights of property and 
the public welfare, but they nave the 
right to publicly meet and discuss them 
in a quiet and peacable manner, and 
make converts to their views if they are 
able to do so. The question of the rela- 
tions of capital and labor, in its varied 
phases, and many others, like the ques- 
tion of the right to exclusive individual 
ownership of the land, or the single tax 
theory, are the burning questions of the 
hour that have come to stay and must 
be met." 

After hearing both sides of the case 
and probing the question to the bottom, 
what does the judge discover? He dis- 
covers that the object of the Anarchist 



( 106) 



societies is to " assist in the fight against 
exploitation;" which he defines to be 
" opposition to the present system of 
usiDg capital, that is to say, capital 
shall be so used that labor shall receive 
a greater share of the combined earnings 
of labor and capital than at present, 
and that capital shall not be used so as 
to oppress the people by combinations 
and monopolies." 

These, then, are the " lawless and in- 
cendiary ideas" that police chief Hub- 
bard attempted with 1500 armed police- 
men to "suppress." "I do not think 
they want to light veiy badly," said the 
chief, who was, it appears, himself "spoil- 
ing for a fight." " If tbey do," he boast- 
mgly remarks, " they can have all they 
want." It is a pity that Judge Tuley 
has defeated police chief Hubbard's well 
matured plans for provoking a riot. 
Couldn't some detective, to revive the 
waning hopes of Monopoly, plant a dy- 
namite bomb, or two, somewhere again? 
But Judge Tuley has caused the Anarch- 
ist scare to collapse as did the S3 alem witch 
scare, more than two hundred years 
ago, and the planting of dynamite bombs 
by detectives, as a means of bringing 
odium on workingmen and sending them 
to the penitentiary, or to execution, has 
ceased to be practicable, either against 
German Anarchists or members of the 
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. 
Some other plan for "manufacturing 
public sentiment" will have to be studied 
out by the astute railroad attorneys, 
assisted by "detectives." 

He says further : "It was argued that 
the Constitution (of the Bund) shows on 
the face the unlawful purpose, because of 
the condition of the membership that 
' only persons of reputable character 
who declare for the abolition of the in- 
human wage system can become mem- 
bers.' Such, according to Judge Tuley, 
is that terrible " Anarchist" heresy ! " It 
aims at the abolition of the inhuman 
wage system !" But how would it "abol- 
ish" that inhuman system? Fearful to 
tell! "The object is to be accomplished 
by the enlightenment and education of 
the masses !'' Such a course as this will 
be fatal to the tyranny of monopolists ! 
And, says the Judge, "I find no law 
which prohibits the formation of socie- 
ties for that purpose." What is still 
worse for the tyrants. "The Solicitor, "the 
Judge continues, " is in error in the sup- 
position that the law upholds or de- 
mands any particular system of carry- 
ing on industrial enterprises." So the 
wage system ia [ trust, destined to pass 
a^ay without so great a jar as did the 
•battel slave system. 

The press dispatch further says: 
"Judge Tuley then takes up the claim on 
behalf of the police, that they had a 
right to prevent a meeting, thereby pre- 
venting crime, and holds that their 
power cannot be given auch latitude ; 
that if the police, at their discretion, do 



what they think will prevent what may,. 
in their judgment, result in crime, legis- 
latures, courts, or governmental officers 
would be entirely superfluous. I am as- 
tounded to find that at this day (in this 
free country)," continues Judge Tuley, 
"it should be urged by affidavit and ar- 
guments in a court of justice, that a 
police official can forbid the meeting of 
a society, or a public meeting, because 
of his belief that this society is a treas- 
onable one and its members are about 
to commit treasonable acts. If this be 
law, then every political, literary, relig- 
ious, or other society, would hold their 
constitutional right of free speech and 
peaceable assembly at the mercy of every 
petty policeman. In no other city in the 
Union except here in Chicago, have the 
police officials attempted to prevent the 
right of free speech or peaceable assem- 
bly upon such unwaranted pretences and 
assumptions of power. It is time to call 
a halt. The right of free speech and 
peaceable assembly is the very life blood 
of freedom. You might as well expect 
the human body to exist after every 
drop of blood has been suspended as to 
expect continued existence of liberty, 
the citizen being deprived of the right of 
free speech and peaceable assembly." 

There is nothing more true than the- 
fact that the common people never 
largely embrace any "ism," political or 
religious, that is not possessed of some 
good points; and there is nothing more 
true than that what Judge Tuley defines 
as " Anarchism," (Socialism divested of 
its John Brown methods of propagan- 
dism,) is a doctrine that merits the can- 
did investigation of every patriotic 
American, though, like Christianity 
itself, it comes to us from the old world. 

Wendell Phillips (I quote from mem- 
ory) said in his great Phi Bata Kappa 
oration, that if he were a Russian living, 
in Russia, he would be a Nihilist, if a 
German residing in Germany he would 
be an Anarchist, if a Frenchman domi- 
ciled in Frace, he would be a Communist, 
if an Irishman dwelling in Ireland, he 
would be an ultra Fenian — a Michael 
Davitt. He explains those "isms" to 
be only the varied forms democracy has 
been forced to assume by the varied 
surroundings. Wnat American, I ask, 
does not sympathize with the Irish in 
their struggles for liberty in Ireland? 
And how were the explosions of dyna- 
mite that shattered the House of Com- 
mons and the Tower of London heard 
by patriotic Americans ! 

Circumstances alter cases. Boston 
saw, delighted, the ship loads of tea 
thrown overboard in her harbor — saw, 
with complacency the destruction of Mr. 
Oliver's house and furnitnre, aud of the 
house and furniture of Lieutenant Gov- 
ernor Hutchinson— "who," says tfae 
historian, "after attempting insistence 
was constrained to depart to save his 
life. By four in the morning one of the 



( 107) 



best houses in the province was com- 
pletely in ruins— nothing remaining but 
the bare walls and floors. The plate, 
family pictures, most of the furniture 
and wearing apparel, about nine hund- 
red pounds sterling, and manuscripts 
and books, which Mr. Hutchinson had 
been thirty years collecting, besides 
many public papers in his custody, were 
either carried off or destroyed." 
Let tyrants beware! 

IX. The Uncertain Tenure of Citizen- 
ship. 
December 6, 1889 

Judge Anderson of the Federal Court 
has lately given a very remarkable de- 
cision, rendering American citizenship of 
uncertain tenure. Citizenship, accord- 
ing to his ruling, may be annulled or 
prevented by the arbitrary ukase of 
courts on account of religious or polit- 
ical opinions, and without the commis- 
sion of any criminal act known to our 
laws. 

The Iowa State Register of Dec. 5, 
1889, directs the attention of its read- 
ers to this extraordinary assumption of 
judicial power. In an editorial article 
it says : " Judge Anderson, in his recent 
Mormon decision, has laid down a very 
important principle regarding citizen- 
ship." * * * "When it denies citizen- 
ship to aliens or natives who have taken 
that (endowment) oath, it takes the 
most effective means to get that (Mor- 
monism) out of the way." 

"The same line of argument which 
Judge Anderson pursued in this case can 
properly be used against the socialists, 
anarchists and other enemies of Amer- 
ican institutions." 

What are Judge Anderson's rulings 
that may have so extended an applica- 
tion? The following is the gist of his 
argument. The Judge says : " The evi- 
dence in this case establishes unques- 
tionably that the teachings, practices 
and purposes of the Mormon -Church 
are antagonistic to the government of 
the United States, utterly subversive of 
good morals and the well- being of so- 
ciety, and that its members are anima- 
ted by a feeling of hostility toward the 
government and its laws." 

Let us for a moment examine this 
reasoning of the learned (?) United 
States Judge with the microscope of 
c<mimon sense. If such ruling had pre- 
vailed forty years ago that "because," 
in the opinion of a court, " the teach- 
ings and practices" of church, uecret so- 
ciety or political part/ are " antagonis- 
tic to the government of the United 
States, utterly subversive of good 
morals and the well being of society, and 
that its members are (in the opinion of 
tfce. court) animated by a feeling of hos- 
t*U tj toward the government and its 
lawc"— though no statute exists pro- 
pounding any punishment whatever for 
opinion, and though treason itself con- 



sists not in any opinion or intention, 
but in actual war begun by firing upon 
a fort, or by giving aid and comfort to 
the enemy in arms— if this ruling, I say, 
had prevailed forty years ago, that "a 
judge of a Federal court may declare an 
American voter no longer a citizen of the 
United States, and may prevent foreign 
emigrants becoming citizens for such 
cause, who might take the naturalization 
oath and comply with the laws in every 
other respect, then all the old-time Abo- 
litionists would have been deprived of 
American citizenship bj r the pro-slavery 
judges who dominated the courts of old, 
and all "Abolition" emigrants would 
have been deprived of the right of becom- 
ing American citizens. 

The Abolitionists declared the Consti- 
tution of the United States a "covenant 
with death and a league with hell." But 
the people of our country then had at 
least a nominal legal right of free speech 
and free thought, being accountable only 
to mobs, who pelted the Abolitionists • 
with rotten eggs, murdered them and 
threw their printing presses into the 
rivers. Courts were the obedient tools of 
the slave power of the South in that day,, 
as they are, in this day, of the money 
power of the East; and they would then 
go to any conceivable length of tyranny 
and usurpation to help the chattel slave- 
drivers, as they do now to help the wage 
slave drivers." But Judge Anderson's 
ruling is a discovery of the year 1889, 
and was not hit upon in time to help 
chattel slavery. What would Wendell 
Phillips say of that decision were he liv- 
ing now ? 

Once standing in Fanuel Hall address- 
ing an indignation meeting of the friends 
of freedom, after a fugitive slave had 
been arrested in Boston, and the courts 
had ordered his return to bondage, the 
great orator and fearless patriot said: 

"I see upon the wall of this ancient 
temple of liberty the inscription, 'God 
bless the commonwealth of Massachu- 
setts!' I say, God damn the common- 
wealth of Massachusetts ! ' ' 

Massachusetts, and the whole North 
and South, atoned for the grievous sin 
of chattel slavery by the sacrifice of the 
lives of thousands of Columbia's bravest 
sons on hundreds of battlefields and m 
camp and hospital. I utter no anath- 
ema; but I do sincerely pray God to- 
save my country ; for I see her liberties, 
overthrown by the judiciary, who create 
new crimes and affix heaviest penalties, 
without warrant of law or precedent of 
courts— unless for precedent we go back 
two hundred aad fifty years in British 
jurisprudence to the time of Charles I 
and the Star Chamber practice. 

In 1860, every man voting for Abra- 
ham Lincoln would, doubtless, have- 
been deprived of American citizenship, 
if the pro-tlavery judges had been a<* 
unscrupulous and audacious as Judge 
Anderson now is; and tkus the Norfo. 



(108 ) 



would have been forced to " rebel," and 
the South would have "fought for the 
Constitution" under the stars and 
stripes. 

When anti -Masonry was so rampant, 
after the disappearance of Morgan, all 
Free Masons of our country, and all of 
that fraternity emigrating here, would 
have been deprived of citizenship by 
anti-Mason courts, had they made the 
preposterous ruling Judge Anderson has 
made. 

&*A bench of "Know Nothing" judges, 
ruling as Judge Anderson has ruled, 
would have made a clean sweep of Ro- 
man Catholics in our politics, by de- 
priving them of citizenship ; and by cut- 
ting off all Catholic emigrants from the 
privilege of becoming citizens of the 
"United States. 

^And now that the Republican party 
has full control of the national govern- 
ment, it is an opportune time for it to 
get the full benefit of Judge Anderson's 
decision by "extending"its application to 
the Democratic party. Whichever party 
held the rems could, by a "court decis- 
ion" like Judge Anderson's, disfranchise 
the members of all the opposing parties 
by declaring them "animated by feelings 
<of hostility to the government and its 
laws," etc., etc., and depriving them 
<af citizenship. 

It will require no great amount of 
"evidence" to convince an ultra par- 
tizan judge, of the 8 to 7 sort, that the 
"teachings, practices and purposes" of 
the members of the opposing parties are 
" antagonistic to the government of the 
United States (as administered by their 
own "loyal" party) , utterly subversive of 
good morals and the well-being of society, 
and its members animated by a feeling 
of hostiliby toward the government and 
its laws," (as earned out by the officials 
of the party in power) ; hence, to be log- 
ical, as well as loyal, they must disfran- 
chise those of the opposition, to the last 
man, and all foreigners who purpose 
joining the opposing parties, by depriv- 
ing them of American citizenship. And 
this sort of judicial usurpation and 
tyranny will go on until the people be- 
come aroused from sleep.* There is a 
deep design in it; and that design clearly 
is to disfranchise the producers, force on 
the people a civil war in which the Anglo- 
American plutocrats will be the "gov- 
€rnment," controlling the destructive 
engines of war, and the toilers of our 

Apjwl 28, 1890. 

* While Ireland is clamoring for 'Home Rule" 
tne American states are deprived of that eacred 
inheritenc*, by the ' , ^mlinf9 ,1 of th* United 
States supreme court. While the nations of the 
«arth are about to unite for tie protection of 
Africa against The ram trade, as they are united 
t 3 protect her against the slare trade, the Fed- 
eral supreme court intervenes to enforce the 
rum traffic upon unwilling states ef the Ameri- 
can Union. A new ''Dred fccott decision' 1 is 
promulgated b- it, the court standing again, as 
of old. a stumbling block ia the way or social 
progress. 



country "rebels," to be shot down Kke 
dogs by armed bands of mercenary 
butchers of human beings. The end 
aimed at by the plutocratic conspira- 
tors is the destruction of democratic 
liberty and the permanent establish- 
ment of British syndicate rule in its 
stead— an oligarchal tyranny— the com- 
plete enthronement of the money power 
and the abject enslavement of the toil- 
ing millions of our countrymen, for all 
time to come. 

How stupid Presidents Johnson and 
Grant and the Congress of the Unite* 
States, at the close of the war, seem to 
have been (when is turned on them the) 
electric light of Judge Anderson's de- 
cision), in not leaving reconstruction to 
the courts, to settle ; which they might 
have done by depriving all the ex-Oon- 
federates of the right of American citi- 
zenship, under a ruling like Judge An- 
derson's, for it is clear that the Confed- 
erates were "animated by a spirit of 
hostility to the government and its 
laws;" and the ex-Confederates would 
doubtless have continued to be, to 
this day, so animated, under such tyran- 
nical treatment as that. A "commis- 
sion," like the Utah commission, ap- 
pointed by the President of the United 
States, could have made "rules" (laws) 
for the "reconstructed South," render- 
ing legislatures superfluous, and thus 
simplifying government materially is 
the interest of the plutocracy of the East, 
making the enfranchisement of the 
blacks, as well as the suffrage of the 
whites, unnecessary — a convenient (to 
tyrants) "republican form of govern- 
ment," forsooth, to "assure" to a state, 
or even to a city, (viz, Washington), or 
to a territory, (viz, Utah)— an abroga- 
tion of the most essential of America* 
rights, won a hundred years ago by tha 
blood of our Revolutionary fathers, and 
proclaimed by them in the Declaration 
of Independence as the birthright of all 
men — the rule of the people. 

It looks very much as if the object ©f 
Mormon persecution by the courts and a 
commission were (1) to establish prece- 
dents, destructive of popular liberty, 
and (2) to rob the Mormon people of 
their homes and their lands in the inter- 
est of syndicates of eastern capitalists, 
whose agents swarm over Deseret |Tfe8 
bees— eo-called "Gentiles," whose only 
object is robbery. 

If the government has any regard lor 
public morality, why does it not aboifek 
the thousands of drinking and gambttnj 
hells and dens of prostitution of Wash- 
ington City? It has a "commission" 
there, and the law-makers, honorable 
judges of the supreme court, president 
and cabinet, are right there on Jhe 
ground to see and behold with their own 
eyes the saloons and gambling hells; and 
many of them may, possibly, have heard, 
too, of the existence there also of houses 
of prostitution and "French Hotels," 



i 



(109) 



i. c, houses of assignation. Washington 
City is deprived of every right of self- 
government and self-protection, and 
congress and the president are wholly 
responsible for the existence of its num- 
berless hells of infamy, "utterly subver- 
sive of good morals and the well being 
of society." Let those hideous dens of 
vice be, in the name of decency, sup- 
pressed! Then, Uncle Sam, having re- 
moved the "beam from his own eye," 
can better see to get the " mote" out of 
his polygamous Mormon brother's eye. 

American liberty is made a holocaust 
of as the outcome of pretended attempts 
of, contemptible courts to put down 
Mormonism, Socialism and Anarchism 
by "rulings"— contemptible, when they 
would destroy human rights ; becau. e 
those rights are more sacred than all 
other earthly things. Behind those pre- 
tences is the sinister purpose, plainly 
discernable, of establishing precedents 
that annul freedom of opinion, of speech, 
of assembly, of the press, and the rights 
of citizenship in the interest of the Anglo- 
American money power ; while a care for 
the " public morals" is not entertained 
or contemplated by them ; but only a 
diabolical purpose is kept constantly in 
view to destroy popular liberty. It is 
plainly manifest that, the same infamous 
"rulings" will soon be extended to 
Trades Unions, Knights of Labor, Farm- 
ers' Alliances, the Wheel, and to every 
other organization, religious and polit- 
ical, antagonistic to plutocratic domina- 
tion — the culmination of a gigantic con- 
spiracy of foreign money lenders, and 
their agents here, to destroy our dem- 
ocratic government, so that the Amer- 
ican producers may continue everlast- 
ingly prostrated, as they now are, be- 
fore the Juggernaut of the money power 
of the Old World. 

History, 'tis said, repeats itself. Our 
present congress, if the recommendations 
of the chief magistrate be carried out 
and crystalized into law, will re-enact 
the "Alien and Sedition Laws" of 1798. 
The old " Alien Law" denied domicile to 
foreigners and sent them out of the 
country; and the old "Sedition Law" 
inflicted fines and imprisonments for 
freedom of speech and of the press, 
aimed nominally at the Jacobins from 
^Revolutionary France,who flocked to our 
shores to (it was said) "stir up sedi- 
tion" — as the Socialists and Anarchists 
from Germany come here now to (it is 
said) "defy our laws." 

President Harrison gives the following 
significant advice to congress in his late 
message. He says: "Our naturaliza- 
tion laws should be so revised as to 
make the inquiring into the character 
and good disposition toward our gov- 
ernment of the person applying for citi- 
zenship, more thorough." And again; 
"Those who are the enemies of social 
order, who come to our shores to swell 
the injurious influence and to extend the 



evil practices of any association that 
defies our laws, should not only be de- 
nied citizenship, but a domicile." 

Of course, the "character and good 
disposition toward our government" of 
every foreign emigrant, holding a differ- 
ent political creed from that of the par- 
tizans that might chance to be in power 
at the time of his landing at Castle Gar- 
den, would hardly "pass muster;" and 
the emigrant would, therefore, "not only 
be denied citizenship, but domicile." 

"Straws show which way the wind 
blows," and " Coming events cast their 
shadows before." 

This utterance put forth by President 
Harrison at about the same time that 
Judge Anderson rendered his "anti-Mor- 
mon" decision, was not accidental. 
There will shortly follow a general^move- 
ment to disfranchise all the toilers whose 
political opinions may not be in accord 
with the opinions of the Anglo-American 
usurers, who control the dominant po- 
litical parties, and whose tools our offi- 
cials are, unless the people become 
alarmed, as they did after the passage 
of the Alien and Sedition laws, nearly a 
century ago, and give, as they did then, 
an emphatic veto, at the ballot box, of 
this threatened destruction of popular 
rights. 

The first bill introduced into the 51st 
congress is the senate bill against trusts. 
I share only a common belief when I ex- 
press my doubts whether any measure 
Mr. Sherman may introduce will prove 
beneficial to the producers. So sadly 
did he blunder, as a financier, so little 
did he seem to understand of the true 
principles of political economy, in bring- 
ing our finance to a gold basis, as to 
lead a distinguished English writer, Mr. 
Daniel Watney, to say : "I cannot sup- 
pose that everybody is wise. Just think 
of the folly of the United States, when 
they were a debtor nation, in adopting 
a gold standard. They knew nothing 
about currency matters; they did not 
know that it was going to increase their 
debt enormously." 

If Mr. Sherman's anti-trust bill be- 
come a law will it not prove a delusion 
and a snare ? Will it not be construed 
by the courts (dominated by the same 
plutocratic power that rules the senate) 
to apply to workingmen when they com- 
bine to raise wages, or to shorten the 
hours of toil ? 

Ever since Andrew Johnson retired 
from the presidency, to the present time, 
the government of our country has been 
controlled by the money lenders, with 
headquarters in Wall Street, New York, 
and Lombard Street, London. The ap- 
pointment of judges, and the admin- 
istration of the laws, have been dictated 
by them. The great party leaders, the 
judiciary and the metropolitan party 
press have been obedient to their voice. 
The welfare of the American producers 
has not been considered, but it has been 



(110) 



basely sacrificed in the making, in the 
interpretation, and in the execution of 
the laws. 

Benjamin Harrison was elected pres- 
ident on the pledge of "protection of 
American labor," which the workers 
were assured by the Republican party 
platforms, press and speakers, meant 

the PROTECTION OF THE LABORERS. If 

President Harrison's administration 
prove not more patriotic and satisfac- 
tory to the producers and laborers of 
America than the administrations of the 
other chief magistrates (not excepting 
any), for twenty years past, have 
proved, and the " lucious fruits" prom- 
ised the farmers and laborers are found 
to be " Sodom Apples" that turn to 
ashes in their mouths, then will the 
great army of producers and laborers 
despair of relief through the agency of 
the " old parties;" and the mighty La- 
bor Unions, Knights of Labor, Farmers' 
Alliances, Wheel and the Silver Produ- 
cers' Combinations will unite as one, 



and form a National Anti-Monopoly 
Political Party (God speed the day ! f) 
to control our country's future. The 
capital of the United States will be re- 
moved to St. Louis; the federal senate 
will become elective directly by the peo- 
ple; the dominant powers (syndicates) 
east of the Alleghames and beyond the 
Atlantic, that have so long ruled and 
ruined America, will be dethroned for- 
ever ; old party leaders retired ; young 
men, alive to the needs of the present 
time, and true to American interests 
and rights, will bear aloft the starry 
flag ; the great west will rule ; agri- 
culture and manufacturing will become 
profitable; money lending and bond 
owning unprofitable; an American mon- 
etary system will prevail ; the umbilical 
cord uniting the United States and 
" Mother England" will be at last cut, 
and Columbia will be born to freedom ; 
while the dying words of John Adams 
"Independence Forever" will become 
the national motto. 



TO MY COMRADES OF THE G. A. R. 



ESPECIALLY ADDRESSED TO COMRADES D. B. MOTT, JOHN G. BLAIR, W. W. PHILLIPS, D. C. 
BISHARD, V. P. TWOMBLY, J. H. COON, J. C. PAINTER, W. D. CHRISTY AND T. L. DYER. 



They are gone—the men of darirg, who the Brit- 
ish hosts defied, 

And who marched elate from Yorktown, they 
have laid their arms aside; 

By their toil they won onr freedom, with their 
blood baptized the state, 

And their patriotic actions we have tried to em- 
ulate. 

We unfurled the sky-born ensign when we^heard 

the rebel guns- 
Thousands died to save that standard— freedom's 

lion-hearted sons — 
High above the clouds we placed it, and the 

" good old cause" maintained, 
Freedom, Union, Independence,— these lost 

blessings we regained. 

Our frail bodies soon must perish, soon com- 
mingle with the soil. 

We relinquish to the living but the memory of 
our toil;— 

May that memory be sufficient to inspire our 
noble sons 

To be watchful, faithful, trustful, standing 
bravely by their guns. 

Be they patriots ever ready, when the foe shall 

come in sight, 
To give warning, meet it he danger, die if need 

be, for the right; 



Be to us the name of " comrade," sacred name™ 

a name to bless, 
And our doors swing always open to the veteran 

in distress. 

Ah, the links that bound the soldiers (fighting 

for their country's weal) 
Each to each in time of danger, friendship, love, 

bright links of steel, 
These shall still remain unbroken, e'en beyond 

the stream of time, 
Though we wade through Lethe river ere we 

reach the sunny clime ! 

And we do not cherish hatred, but extend our 

love to those 
Who laid down their arms,— "surrendered,"— 

our brave countrymen— not " foes"— 
With our " Charity an ocean, with "Fraternity" 

as broad— 
For Columbia reunited, give we grateful ^thanks 

to God. 

We will still continue greetings in the friendly 

Army Post 
While remain a dozen veterans of the glorious 

Union host 
We will keep the camp-fires burning, keep old 

friendships still ablaze 
And the patriotic fervor bright as in the darkest 

days. 



Dec. 25, 1885. 



DIVISION THE SECOND 



INTO FREEDOM. 



+h a +Il ? ? *•?£ % anir P a ginary wealth? Its value is wholly in law. Where is 
nWaT« C V thaS -l r0m ? at V re o ? Jl the °V M ™ that admits it into circulation 
changes, where is its real value? What necessity of life could it relieve ?— Aristotle. 

'•Nothing produces more intense suffering than a decrease in the amount of 
^ OI il J ' x. Io J decrease ^e amount of money, raises the value of every debt and adds 
to the burden of every debtor. It increases the value of notes, mortgages and 
bonds. It enriches the few at the expense of the many. Even if the amount re- 
mains stationary, the creditors are enriched at the expense of the debtors When 
arbitrarily the amount of money is decreased it amounts to virtual robbery of the 
debtor classes.— Chatauqua Text Book of Political Economy .—Dr. Ely. 

" Two thousand capitalists own more than all the rest of the sixty-five millions 
of our population. Two hundred and fifty thousand rich men control seventy-five 
per cent of the national wealth. The American republic is therefore oractically 
owned by less than one quarter of a million of persons. If present causes, which 
produce concentration of capital continue, the republic will soon be owned by less 
tnan fifty thousand men."— Rev. Joseph Cook. 



DEDICATION OF DIVISON THE SECOND, 



To HON. LELAND STANFORD, of California. 
MY DEAR SIR: 

Your magnanimous patriotism has won for you *the undying gratitude of the 
producers of America— bound hands and feet in chains to the money power of the 
Old World. You have spoken the word that will give freedom to the enslaved 
millions the world over. I thank you for it. That word marks the end of 
the reign of the Rothchilds here. British money lords have too long domin- 
ated our Congress. You have brought their domination to a close. The producers 
of our country will now again have attention in our halls of legislation.* The Pres- 
ident will lend an ear to their petitions. The Great West will speak and be heard at 
Washington. The false statesmen that have so long betrayed western interests — 
that have continued so long the willing (and I think the paid) agents of Wall 
-Street and Lombard Street, will be, like their great prototype, Satan, 

" Hurled headlong * * * 
With hideous ruin and combustion, down 
To bottomless peidition." 

Yours truly, 

LEONARD BROWN. 



ESSAY XY.— THE FKEE COINAGE OF SILVER 

(AN OPEN LETTER TO MR. CONGER.) 



I. The Betrayal of the Many. 

Hon.' E. H. Conger,— My Friend: I 
purpose speaking to you, a representa- 
tive of the jjeople in the Congress of the 
United States, from the geographical 
tenter (almost) of the Mississippi Val- 
ley— I purpose speaking to you plainly on 
behalf of the farmers of the great west 
and south. They have been bankrupted 
by the financial policy of our govern- 
ment. Contraction of the currency is 
"The dagger that stabbed Caesar." 

It has emptied the veins of our pros- 
perity. Western statesmen have done 
the stabbing at the bidding of the money 
power of the east. A money famine, 
brought on over twenty years ago, by 
the defection from the people of the Hon. 
Hugh McCulloch, of Indiana, and further 
intensified by that of the Hon. John 
.Sherman, of Ohio, and prolonged down 
to the present hour by the continued 
betrayal of the many by our political 
leaders— not a "seven years," but a 
twenty years famine— the result of 
the most gigantic conspiracy, grounded 
on venality, corruption and treachery, 
that history will ever record, exceeding 
in baseness the sale of the freedom of 
Ireland a century ago, when her inde- 
pendence was bartered away by Irish 
traitors for British gold, is the cause of 
the ruin of the agriculturists of the 
Mississippi Valley. Posterity will be 
amazed at the array of great names 
that the historian will set down as hav- 
ing, like Demosthenese, "accepted the 
golden bowl." The great west has been 
betrayed by the men she had trusted. 
It were better for them had a millstone 
been tied to their necks and they thrown 
into the sea— and far better for our coun- 
try. The crime of Maximilian, of Mex- 
ico, for which, with face turned to the 
wall,hewasignominiously shot to death 
by bullets in his back, was a virtue com- 
pared with the crime committed by west- 
ern "credit mobilier" statesmen, who 
have been "won over to British interests 
by bribes of British gold." Who they 
are is well known. Hence, for me to 
name them would be a waste of words. 
The time of their utter execration by the 
American people is not afar off; and the 
contempt of mankind, yea, the loathing 
of posterity for their treachery will be- 
eome more and more intense as the cen- 
turies go by. 
A committee appointed by Congress 



to report upon the land and finance 
questions, if it would declare correctly 
the situation, would say that " we are 
on the eve of a change of ownership of 
the land from that by the many to the 
system prevalent in Ireland — that our 
present system of finance' is incompat- 
able with the many ow^ning land, or 
their owning any other kind of property 
whatever, and only compatable with a 
condition of enslavement of the Ameri- 
can people to the British gold owners: it 
being the same system that has resulted 
in transferring the wealth of India from 
the possession of the native owners into 
the hands of the British invaders, and 
that it was imposed upon America, not 
by the sword as upon India, but by the 
corruption of our leaders who for bribes 
bartered away their country's freedom, 
wealth and independence — basely sur- 
rendering back to Great Britain all the 
fathers had won in the war of the Kevo- 
lution." 

II. The Contraction Deadfall*. 

When the war closed twenty-five mil- 
lions of northern people had in hand 
about eighteen thousand million dollars 
of a circulating medium. The producers 
were never more prosperous. Times 
were good because " money was plenty" 
and crops fair. The south restored to 



*Rev. W. G. Todd, a graduate of Harvard Col- 
lege and editor of " The Teachers' Outlook.' 1 a 
magazine oi much literary merit, publisher* in 
Des Moines, has compiled and printed from offi- 
cial sources the following table, showing the 
amount of currency contraction yearly from 
1866 to 1887. 



CIRCULATION PER CAPITA. 



Year. 

1866 
1867 
1868 
1869 
1870 
1871 
1872 
1873 
1874 
1875 
1876. 
1877 
1878 
1879 
1880 
1881 
1882 
1883 
1884 
1885 
1886 
1887 



Circulation. 

$1,863 409,216 
1.350,949 218 
794,756,112 
730,705 638 
691.028,377 
620 344,147 
661,641.363 
652 896.762 
631,032,773 
630,427,600 
620,306,970 
586,328,074 
589,549,187 
534,424 248 
528,524 267 
610,632,433 
657,404 084 
648,205,895 
591,476,978 
533.405,001 
470.J 74,361 
423,452,221 



Population. 
35,819,281 
36,260,502 
37,016,940 
37 779.800 
38,559,371 
39,750 073 
40 978,607 
42,245 110 
43,560,756 
44 896.705 
46.2S4.344 
47,714,829 
4,8935,306 
50,155,783 
51,660,456 
53,210,269 
54,807,577 
56,550,714 
58,145,235 
59,8^8,562 
61,685,218 
63 535 674 



Pr. Cap 
$52.01 
37.47 
21.51 
19.34 
18.70 
16.89 
16.14 
15.45 
14.51 
14.04 
13.40 
12.28 
11.23 
10.63 
10.23 
11.48 
11.97 
11.48 
10.17 
8.90 
7.63 
6.6T 



( 1 13 ) 



the Union, adding fifteen millions <.i 
agriculturists, destitute of money, 
among whom our currency must also be 
distributed; and the Union soldiers re- 
turning to civil life to receive higher 
wages than they were paid in the army, 
or to engage in business demanding cap- 
ital, it would certainly have been in 
accord with the dictates of common sense 
for government to increase the amount 
of our money to meet this increased de- 
mand—if the prosperity of the people 
wasdesiied. But the prosperity of the 
people was not then, and naverhas been 
since, desired by the great chiefs at 
Washington. Our leaders were not fools. 
But too many of th«mi were, and are, 
knaves. We know and judge them by 
their acts, b> what they did and do. 
Columbia, unfortunately, "fell among 
thieves." More than one-half of our 
currency was funded into intei est- beat- 
ing bonds ; and, with an increasing pop- 
ulation that from not over forty mill- 
ions in lN6r>, counts nearly sixty-five 
millions in 1890, our currency does not 
reach (actually in the channels of busi- 
ness), beyond one-half the amount we 
had stimulating the industry of only 
twenty-five millions of people in the north 
at the time of the surrender of Lee. Much 
♦ that the treasury books show of "cur- 
rency now afloat" does not in fact exist; 
for it has been, in many ways, consumed. 
The three thousand national banks hold 
many millions of "reserve" — much has 
been hoarded and much destroyed by 
fire and flood and through innumerable 
other leaks has our money disappeared, 
until to-day not over five hundred mill 
ions of dollars are left in the channels of 
business and trade in the United States 
— not more than seven dollars per. 
capita, when there were over seventy dol- 
lais of money afloat per capita among 
the twenty-five millions of northern peo- 
ple in 1 865*.* This is the same presenta- 
tion of the case as that made by 
General Weaver and others time and 
again in congressional speeches, and our 
congressmen have, none of them, been 
ignorant of its truth. 

The machinations of the enemy (the 
British gold owners) may be seen plainly 

*The Secretary of ihe Treasury, Mr. vvindom 
claims, in a late article commuijica r ed by him to 
the rattiopojitan press, that there is, according 
to the maeury books, twenty-two dollars for 
each of the sixty-five millions of our population, 
of. currency t float now (May 1890), tqual to one 
million four hundred and thirty xullione of 
money ($1,430,000), How much ef this has been 
lost ana consumed by fire and water, how much 
hoariled, how much held in "reserve" 11 in the 
banks, how much '•retired" and how much con- 
gested in eastern monev centers is not given by 
him. Little money is circulating in the channels 
of trade and business west of the Alleghanus— 
not, (it is safe to say, ) as much as seven dollars 
per capita. But it" is all controlled by the na- 
tional bankii g '•trust''' and the people are 
'•taxed -without- their consent" by- the nr-urers, 
ad libitum. Thic evil can only be cored by such 
a monetary s^ttem as that proposed by senator 
St-nnfotd of California. 
8 



in the way silver was demonetized in 
1873. President Grant said he did not 
know that the clause demonetizing silver 
wa*> in the finance bill when he signed it; 
and western congressmen made haste to 
plead that they, too, were ignorant of 
the fact when they voted for the bill. 
The House passed a bill almost unani- 
mously to demonetize silver and re- 
establish its free and unlimited coinage. 
But our plutocratic Senate would only 
yield to the extent of permitting the pur- 
chase of silver bullion by the Secretary 
of the Treasury and the coinage of from 
two millions to four millions legal tender 
silver dollars monthly. But no Secre- 
tary of the .Treasury has had the pat- 
riotism to disobey the commands of the 
British gold owners and their agents, 
the national bankers, and obey the 
voice of the American people since and 
coin more than the minimum required 
by direct mandate of law — two millions 
monthly, which shows plainly that he 
woufd not coin a dollar of silver if not 
compulsory. The great Anglo-American 
banking trust, that has our government 
clutched tightly by the throat, have, in 
collusion with their agents, the Secre- 
taries of the United States Treasury — 
prohibited its distribution, and thus 
they have nullified the law, grudgingly 
passed by the Senate as the least that 
would appease the suffering people- 
hence most of our silver coin still re- 
mains stored in the treasury vaults at 
Washington. That law would not have 
been passed had not the bankers pos- 
sessed the power to nullify it, so com- 
pletely is the Senate controlled by them. 
If this condition of things is permanently 
fixed, the United States government has 
forever ceased to be a republic and is 
become an oligarchy of money lenders. 
To be sure the people will never regain 
control without a tremendous struggle, 
the like of which has not been known 
in our history. 

III. The Antiquity of Silver Money, 

By common consent of mankind from 
the days of Abraham to the present 
age silver coin, and silver by weight, 
have been money. To owe money and 
pay standard silver coin, or by weight, 
give so many " shekels of silver, current 
money with the merchant," has always 
been considered "honest." And until 
1873 coined silver was always money 
equal with coined gold in our country, 
and the Constitution of the United 
States places it on the same plane with 
gold. Mexican dollars were legal tender 
here up to near the beginning of the 
civil war. Why was silver demonetized, 
and why is its free coinage prevented? 
Talk of the "Latin Union" and the "de- 
monetization of silver" in Europe— and 
what does it mean? It means that a 
money power exists in Europe stronger 
than all governments there, and upon 



ESSAY XY.— THE FKEE COINAGE OF SILVER 

(AN OPEN LETTER TO MR. CONGER.) 



I. The Betrayal of the Many. 

Hon.' E. H. Conger,— My Friend: I 
purpose speaking to you, a representa- 
tive of the jjeople in the Congress of the 
United States, from the geographical 
tenter (almost) of the Mississippi Val- 
ley— I purpose speaking to you plainly on 
behalf of the farmers of the great west 
and south. They have been bankrupted 
by the financial policy of our govern- 
ment. Contraction of the currency is 
"The dagger that stabbed Caesar." 

It has emptied the veins of our pros- 
perity. Western statesmen have done 
the stabbing at the bidding of the money 
power of the east. A money famine, 
brought on over twenty years ago, by 
the defection from the people of the Hon. 
Hugh McCulloch, of Indiana, and further 
intensified by that of the Hon. John 
.Sherman, of Ohio, and prolonged down 
to the present hour by the continued 
betrayal of the many by our political 
leaders— not a "seven years," but a 
twenty years famine— the result of 
the most gigantic conspiracy, grounded 
on venality, corruption and treachery, 
that history will ever record, exceeding 
in baseness the sale of the freedom of 
Ireland a century ago, when her inde- 
pendence was bartered away by Irish 
traitors for British gold, is the cause of 
the ruin of the agriculturists of the 
Mississippi Valley. Posterity will be 
amazed at the array of great names 
that the historian will set down as hav- 
ing, like Demosthenese, "accepted the 
golden bowl." The great west has been 
betrayed by the men she had trusted. 
It were better for them had a millstone 
been tied to their necks and they thrown 
into the sea— and far better for our coun- 
try. The crime of Maximilian, of Mex- 
ico, for which, with face turned to the 
wall,hewasignominiously shot to death 
by bullets in his back, was a virtue com- 
pared with the crime committed by west- 
ern "credit mobilier" statesmen, who 
have been "won over to British interests 
by bribes of British gold." Who they 
are is well known. Hence, for me to 
name them would be a waste of words. 
The time of their utter execration by the 
American people is not afar off; and the 
contempt of mankind, yea, the loathing 
of posterity for their treachery will be- 
eome more and more intense as the cen- 
turies go by. 
A committee appointed by Congress 



to report upon the land and finance 
questions, if it would declare correctly 
the situation, would say that " we are 
on the eve of a change of ownership of 
the land from that by the many to the 
system prevalent in Ireland — that our 
present system of finance' is incompat- 
able with the many ow^ning land, or 
their owning any other kind of property 
whatever, and only compatable with a 
condition of enslavement of the Ameri- 
can people to the British gold owners: it 
being the same system that has resulted 
in transferring the wealth of India from 
the possession of the native owners into 
the hands of the British invaders, and 
that it was imposed upon America, not 
by the sword as upon India, but by the 
corruption of our leaders who for bribes 
bartered away their country's freedom, 
wealth and independence — basely sur- 
rendering back to Great Britain all the 
fathers had won in the war of the Kevo- 
lution." 

II. The Contraction Deadfall*. 

When the war closed twenty-five mil- 
lions of northern people had in hand 
about eighteen thousand million dollars 
of a circulating medium. The producers 
were never more prosperous. Times 
were good because " money was plenty" 
and crops fair. The south restored to 



*Rev. W. G. Todd, a graduate of Harvard Col- 
lege and editor of " The Teachers' Outlook.' 1 a 
magazine oi much literary merit, publisher* in 
Des Moines, has compiled and printed from offi- 
cial sources the following table, showing the 
amount of currency contraction yearly from 
1866 to 1887. 



CIRCULATION PER CAPITA. 



Year. 

1866 
1867 
1868 
1869 
1870 
1871 
1872 
1873 
1874 
1875 
1876. 
1877 
1878 
1879 
1880 
1881 
1882 
1883 
1884 
1885 
1886 
1887 



Circulation. 

$1,863 409,216 
1.350,949 218 
794,756,112 
730,705 638 
691.028,377 
620 344,147 
661,641.363 
652 896.762 
631,032,773 
630,427,600 
620,306,970 
586,328,074 
589,549,187 
534,424 248 
528,524 267 
610,632,433 
657,404 084 
648,205,895 
591,476,978 
533.405,001 
470.J 74,361 
423,452,221 



Population. 
35,819,281 
36,260,502 
37,016,940 
37 779.800 
38,559,371 
39,750 073 
40 978,607 
42,245 110 
43,560,756 
44 896.705 
46.2S4.344 
47,714,829 
4,8935,306 
50,155,783 
51,660,456 
53,210,269 
54,807,577 
56,550,714 
58,145,235 
59,8^8,562 
61,685,218 
63 535 674 



Pr. Cap 
$52.01 
37.47 
21.51 
19.34 
18.70 
16.89 
16.14 
15.45 
14.51 
14.04 
13.40 
12.28 
11.23 
10.63 
10.23 
11.48 
11.97 
11.48 
10.17 
8.90 
7.63 
6.6T 



( 115 ) 



•dollars, and silver will pour into our 
country from Mexico, South America 
and Europe, and soon money will be as 
plentiful as in war times. 

But who must pay for this nominal 
rise in thj value of silver? I say nom- 
inal, ior it is only apparent and not real, 
being measured by the " yardstick" 
(gold i of "uncertain length." Not one 
cent of this seeming rise in the value of 
silver comes off the producers. Only the 
wine that was poured from the silver 
pitcher into the gold pitcher will be 
poured back from the gold pitcher into 
the silver pitcher again. The increase 
of value -of silver caused by its free coin- 
age will indicate a common increase in 
the price of commodity — the first wave 
that precedes the rise of the Nile. It 
will lie followed by the inundation bring- 
ing plentv and prosperitv to all; quad- 
rupling the number of hog, cattle and 
•grain buyers, and of investors in all 
(kinds of productive property and busi- 
ness enterprises, corn, instead of selling 
tor 14 cents per bushel in Des Moines, as 
now, will bring (30 cents as in 1865; 
wheat, instead of (JO cents, will bring 
$2.00; hogs, instead of 2 and 3 cents per 
pound gross. will bring from 8 to 12 cts.; 
and beef cattle, instead of from 1 to 2 
.cents per pound, wiill bring from 7 to 10 
cents. This will free the people from 
debt and close all the agencies of the 
trust and loan companies. All will be 
made prosperous thereby, excepting the 
note, mortgage and bond-owning class.* 
Seventy-two cents worth of silver 
metal now is the equivalent in Iowa of 
5 1-7 bushels of corn; a silver dollar, 
when war prices have been brought 
back by plentifulness of money, will pay 
tor only 1 1-7 bushels of corn. This 
shows why the money lenders oppose 
free silver coinage. The price of money 
is determined in the West by the num- 
ber of bushels of corn a dollar will buy. 
In the pending conflict the following will 
he the order of battle : 
DEAR MONEY AND ('HEAP PRO- 
DUCTS ; 
{The side of the Money Lenders.) 
<"HEAP MONEY AND' DEAR PRO- 
DUCTS ; 
(The side ot the Producers.) 

*The Fort Dodge messenger in a long article 
(which has been reprinted in several papers in 
Iowa), by a labored presentation of statistical 
"facte"' proves conclusively that prices of labor 
produC s are from 40 to 60 per cent lower in 1890 
than in 1880. This reduction he|counts as the result 
of " improvements in machinery.' 1 It is a ''great 
benefits to farmers and wage workers," he says. 
Farm implements have been i educed in price by 
the expiration of patents; but the genenl re- 
duction of prices hz§~ been caused by currency 
contractio^-inclndtng the price of lands, Ma- 
chinery has not caused an " over production"' of 
land. Farm lands ought to be higher in price if 
farmers are making more money now by farm- 
ing than in 1880. And what great "improvements 
in machinery" 1 have been made during the last 
ten years to produce s© marked a difference in 
prices? Low prices of labor products mean* 
bankruptcy to producers of those products and 
:great prosperity to money owners. 



All the silver bricks extant that have 
passed out of the hands of the producers 
of silver are owned by the bank> 
are held for speculation. They pure 
silver at a low price to sell it at an ad- 
vance to European buvers. Free silver 
coinage will wind up this sort of specula- 
tion. No more American silver will be sold 
in the market by the producers of that 
metal ; but the entire product of our 
mines will be converted into coin as 
fast as the quartz mills and the smelters 
can turn it out. What an addition this 
will be to the volume of our currency- 
more than fifty million dollars yearly 
from our own mines ! The annual pro- 
duction of silver the world over is about 
one hundred and eighteen million dol- 
lars. Our mints will receive of this not 
less than seventy-five millions annually. 
The mighty benefits of such a vast yearly 
increase of "sound currency," intrinsic 
value" money to production in the 
United States, can not be overrated. 

But it needs no argumentation to show 
that the banks will light it to the death 
(of themselves, I trust). Othello's occu- 
pation will be gone forever, if the people 
regain their ancient right of silver money; 
for no longer will the bankers' Saratoga 
congress control the finances of America 
and regulate (contract and expand, as 
it suits their selfish purposes) the vol- 
ume of our money. That the people of 
the United States have tameby submit- 
ted to be driven by a regiment of Wall 
street money barons, ignominiously 
under the yoke and held in Egyptian 
bondage for twenty-seven years, is a 
curious commentary on Republican in- 
stitutions. 

Y. What the People Demand. 

I believe that the fiat of the people of the 
West, without regard to party, has gone 
forth that silver must be coined as of 
old, as freely as gold and, like gold, be 
made a legal tender for all debts, public 
and private ; and that whoever may 
take 112 1 2 grains of silver to the mint 
shall receive therefor . a standard 
legal tender silver dollar, (paying, oi 
course, for its coinage, as the farmer 
pays toll for his grist) , that the value 
legislated out of silver into gold to en- 
rich the owners of gold (and of notes, 
mortgages and bonds), shall be legislated 
back "out of gold into silver again to 
save from bankruptcy and ruin the pro- 
ducers of corn, cotton, etc 

If a tidal wave of silver flow to our 
shores, as the result of free silver coin- 
age, may not as great a tidal wave of 
gold flow out from our shores to Europe 
horn the same cause? This will not be 
to our injury, if for every dollar of gold 
shipped abroad a legal-tender paper 
dollar be added to our circulation— as 
the example of France has taught us to 
know. 
The outcome of this conflict will leave 



(116) 



America a true republic, or it will leave 
her ; an unmitigated oligarchy. Cheap 
money and dear products— a republic ; 
dear money and cheap products— an 
oligarchy. 1 nail this thesis to the 
door of every college and challenge every 
professor of political economy in the 
world to controvert it. Xo people 
will make laws to impoverish and en- 
slave themselves ; and the fact that the 
American people are impoverished by 
laws passed by the Congress of the Uni- 
ted States and signed by the President, 
is proof positive that those laws were 
not passed at the dictation of the many; 
but only at that of the Saratoga Con- 
gress of American bankers who are 
merelv the agents of the monev power of 
the Old World. 

I make this assertion as confident of 
its truth as I am that I exist that every 
senator and representative in the 51st 
Congress who shall advocate any other 
measure of finance than absolutely free 
silver coinage, is in league with the 
money lenders; and every political 
journal that ignores the finance question 
and v rings the coAv-bell of "Tariff" or 
" Free Trade" is subsidised by the bank- 
ers' trust of Europe and America. The 
national campaign of 1888 was fought 
out on a false issue raised by collusion 
of dominant party leaders on both sides, 
at the dictation of the money lords of 
Wall and Lombard Streets. 

The farmers of the West are not now 
in a condition of mind to submit tamely 
to be trilled with any longer. Observe 
the new administration that was en- 
trusted with power by the people, be- 
cause it pledged '* protection" to indus- 
try, (and especially to agriculture');, in- 
flating the price of government bonds in 
the hands of the usurers, by buying them 
if; the open market at 127 per cent, 
while agricultural products are depre- 
ciated below cost of production, and the 
fanners are linking deeper and deeper 
into the mire of debt, into which they 
have been pushed by' conspirators and 
bribe-takers at the capital, at the com- 
mand of the gold owners of the Old 
World, through the operation of a sys- 
tem of "currency contraction," — the 
national banks being now engaged in 
"retiring" millions upon millions of 
their currency to this end ; that is to 
say. to bankrupt the agriculturists and 
force the foreclosure of mortgages, and 
the dispossession of the people of their 
lands, for the avowed purpose of inaug- 
urating permanently and universally 
the European system of tenantry in the 
United States and the reduction of our 
agriculturists to the condition of serfs. 
And what is worse yet, the present own- 
ers will be driven back upon the already 
over-crowded east, and newly imported 
foreigners (Bohemians, Poles, etc.,) will 
occupy the old homesteads of the "in- 
dependent western farmers," as renters. 
The old homesteaders must "go" as the 



Indians went, unless something be done 
soon by the government to prevent it. 
They will not have even the poor priv- 
ilege of being tenants on the farms they 
once owned. 

The farmers of the Union modestly 
ask of Congress now, as an initiatory 
movement for their relief, free coinage of 
silver, confidently believing that it will 
raise considerably the price of corn, 
wheat, pork, beef, cotton, wool, etc.. by 
increasing greatly the ajnount of money 
in circulation, and thus help them get. 
from under the burden of debt forced 
upon tl em by a false and wicked finance 
system instituted, by go vernment at the 
dictation of foreign usurers. 

The following statement, made by 
Mr. C. Hamilton, of Whitelaw, Kansas, 
illustrates the the oppressive working of 
our present finance system. Mr. H. 
says: "Three years ago my neighbor 
borrowed $140 for ninety days. When 
it came due there was no mone;y to meet 
it; it was renewed, and so on, from time 
to time, till about three weeks ago when 
the sheriff came out and took the last 
hoof he had, a wagon, a buggy, two sets- 
of harness, four horses and one cow. 
i hey were all sold on the street for $130. 
In the three years L§ paid $100 in in- 
terest." 

To be sure, if the state of Kansas was 
controlled by the people of Kansas, 
horses and cattle and other property 
would not be sold, except at an appraised, 
valuation. A friend of mine, Mr. H. 
Harris, of Brown county, Nebraska,. 
gives me the following facts: "Brown 
county was settled first in 1884. In 
18S8 there were about fifteen hundred 
voters in the county. Mr. C. W. Potter, 
candidate for Lieut. Governor, examined 
the county records and found the 
amount of mortgage debt of the people 
of that countv on land and chattels to- 
be in 1888, $1,400,000. The interest 
paid in many cases is from three to- 
twelve per cent per month. To secure a 
loan of $385.00 you are obliged to give 
your note for $400.00." That is the- 
way the law against usury is evaded.. 
But it is about as bad in Des Moines, 
where interest is exacted at from three 
to ten per cent per month. 

The condition of the people, finan- 
cially, is such tliat the entire surplus in 
the treasury and a billion dollars more 
of legal tender scrip ought to be advanc- 
ed immediately by the government in 
loans to the producers, on their lands 
and products, at a rate of interest not 
greater than the banks pay of " tax on 
their circulation"— one per cent per an- 
num. But every measure proposed for 
their relief is defeated at Washington, 
and the policy of George III towards our 
fathers, is being repeated by Congress 
toward the toilers of America. 

VI. A Fraudulent "Silver Bill." 

The " Windom Silver Bill" puts a stop- 



( in ) 



to the coinage of the "from two to four 
million dollars monthly, " of silver pro- 
vided for by the law of 1878. That is 
manifestly the one essential aim of the 
measure, if not to underhandedly de- 
demonetize silver, as before, and "thus 
aga.:n contract the currency hundreds of 
millions in the interest of the gold, note, 
mortgage and bond owners. It is a 
-cunning attempt of a public officer not 
to do what the people have commanded 
to be done. It provides that^ the Sec- 
retary of the Treasury shall purchase 
witn legal tender sil ver certificates, silver 
bunion dug from American mines. How 
much? That is left optional with the 
Secretary of the Treasury. None will be 
purchased by him, it is safe to say. 
Why? Because (1) he will have no dis- 
position to purchase contrary to the 
behests of the money-lenders. * Because 
(2 j the silver bullion will be cornered bv 
the banks (that have resolved upon 
maintaining the single gold standard 
controlling the amount of currency 
afloat and keeping money scarce among 
the people), so that he cannot do so if 
he even had a mind to ; for the bill pro- 
vides that if . specie be " cornered" and 
the price brought up above a certain 
point below par, " he shall not purchase 
any." 

And because (3) of the manifest design 
of the following clause of Mr. Windom's 
fraudulent "silver bill," which clause is 
intended to neutralize the good prom- 
ised, i. e., prevent the increase of the 
amount ot money in circulation. It 
reads as follows: ""That the notes is- 
sued under the provisions of this Act 
shall be redeemed upon demand at the 
Treasury of the United States, or at the 
office Of an Assistant Treasurer of the 
United States, by the issue of a certificate 
of deposit for the sum of the notes so 
presented, payable at one of the mints 
of the United States, in an amount of 
silver bullion equal in value on the date 
of said certificate to the number of dol- 
lars stated therein, at the market price 
of silver, or such notes may be redeemed 
in gold coin, at the option of the Gov- 
ernment; provided, that upon demand 
of the holder such notes shall be re- 
deemed in silver dollars." 

Note the fact that " these notes shall 
be redeemed"— how? (1) Bv the issue of 
" certificates of deposit," or (2), in gold 
coin, or (3), "at the demand of the 
holder," in silver dollars. llie|" option 
of the government" means nothing; for 
has not the government done the bid- 
ding of the Wall street bankers and 
brokers for twenty-seven years? — and 
will it not continue, in so far as Mr. 
Wiruloin is concerned, to still do their 
bidding? Those silver certificates will 
circulate as money till they reach the 
banks, when they will be returned to the 
sub-treasury for redemption "in gold 
-coin" or "certificates of deposit," but 
'"the holder" will never demand silver 



dollars. Hence the banks will continue 
to control tue amount of currency afloat. 
Mr. Windom manifestly has no inten- 
tion by this bill to deprive the banks of 
this power. 

The following clause provides for the 
coinage (?) of silver: "That the silver 
deposited under this act, represented by 
treasuary notes which have been re- 
deemed in gold coin or in silver dollars, 
may be coined into standard silver dol- 
lars or any other denomination of silver 
coin now authorized by law for the pur- 
pose of replacing the coin used in the re- 
demption of the notes." Observe the 
expression, " may be coined." Would 
Mr. Windom, the Wall street banker 
ca* '■ a note endorsed, "he may pay?" 
"SAa ' be coined," would mean some- 
tin ^ D " May be," means nothing. And 
if the law said " those notes shall be re- 
deemed in silver dollars," it would mean 
something for the interest of the pro- 
ducers. But the producers are not in- 
tended to be benefitted by it; but the 
bankers are. 

VII. An Important Precedent. 

It is an old saying that "Chickens 
come home to roost." The issue of legal- 
tender notes in payment for silver bul- 
lion to be stored up by the government, 
is an important precedent that may be 
valuable to the people hereafter in their 
war against the money power. Let me 
inquire: 

First.— What right has the govern- 
ment to purchase one particular com- 
modity at the exclusion of all other-, 
and that commodity one among the 
least essential and least useful of all the 
commodities? 

Second. — Why not government buy up 
all the surplus wheat, as Joseph, tha 
high chancellor of the Egyptian Pha- 
roah did, "laying it up in store houses? v 
And why not give for it ' wheat certifi- 
cates," receivable for customs, taxes 
and all public dues, and when received 
into the Treasury may be reissued, the 
same as is proposed by the "Windom 
bill" for silver certificates? This would 
kill the " wheat trust" and give the farm- 
ers a sure market for that cereal at the 
price " current in the leading markets of 
the world." and add greatly to the 
amount of mom y afloat. 

So the gold owners are "building 
wiser than they know," in their frantic 
efforts to destroy silver money and 
maintain the "gold standard." You, 
Mr. Conger, the reputed god-father of 
the Windom (Dexel, Morgan & Co.'s, 
rather) "silver bill," will do a good 
office to your constituents of the 7th 
district of Iowa, and the inhabitants of 
the entire Mississippi valley, ftom the 
Alleghanies to the Rockies, and from 
Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico, by 
securing an amendment to the bill, so aa 
to include wheat, corn, oats, rye, barley, 



( lis ) 



beans, peas, rice, cotton, sugar, salt, 
etc., also copper, lead, coal, pig-iron, 
petroleum, etc., etc., that the govern- 
ment shall purchase and store up, the 
same as it does the comparatively use- 
less and non-essential metal, silver, pay- 
ing for them treasury notes, " receiva- 
ble" the same as those to be provided 
j or the purchase of silver metal, and at 
the "prices current in the leading mark- 
ets of the world." Gold to be included 
also among the metals so purchased 
and kept in store, and paid for with 
"gold certificates" made legal tender, 
and prohibiting the coinage of gold, the 
same as silver, showing the same favor 
to the one metal as to the other, and 
the same to all metals alike, and to all 
the more valuable products not too per- 
ishable, the necessary as well as the 
ona a mental, the useful as well as the 
beautiful. 

Thus will you do a lasting good to 
your country, and especially the West 
and South, — burdened with mortgage 
at bts- — increasing vastly in this way the 
amount of money afloat — gold and sil- 
ver taking their places, on a level with 
all other commodities, and not honored 
above those more useful, the exclusive 
"basis" of our paper money ceasing to 
be "gold." I think this is really coming. 
The farmers of our country in national 
convention last fall, demanded substan- 
tially this very recognition — the same 
as has been given bullion owners. And 
Senator Vance has introduced into 
Congress a bill to this effect, as I learn 
from the following press dispatch in this 
morning's papers: 

" Washington, Feb. 24, 1890.— Senator 
Yance introduced a bill to establish in 
every county in every state in the Union 
y-n agricultural depository under the 
control of the treasury department, in 
which the owners of grain, cotton, to- 
bacco, etc., may deposit their product, 
<eeeiving therefor a warehouse receipt 
and treasury notes equal to 80 per cent 
of the net market value of the deposit, 
i'eposits may be redeemed at any time 
on payment of the sum advanced, with 
Interebt at 1 per cent per annum." 

So, just as fast as insatiable greed can 
push them on, the gold monopolists are 
paving the way to the complete over- 
throw c>f the ancient idol, the "Golden 
Calf," that the American people have 
been ignorantly worshiping for the last 
twenty-seven years, to their utter cie- 
morahzation and ruin. 

vTlI. An American Finance System. 

The farmers of the Mississippi valley 
will soon be dispossessed of their lands, 
if relief by government do not come 
quickly. Indeed it is the same thing 
with them as if dispossessed now. Their 
lands are mortgaged, and the interest 
they pay is a ha vy rent. The principal 
they can never pay. Why ctoes n^t 



farming pay? What ails Uncle Sam?' 
He is bound hands and feet in chains. 
What enemy hath done this? Many 
enemies. It is a mob of evils that has 
assaulted and finally overcome him. 
Heavy taxes are part. Tax on sugar, 
tax on tobacco, tax on cows, tax on 
lands, tax on everything he calls his 
own. But I may truly say these taxes 
are comparatively a very small evil. 
The tax by railroad corporations is? 
greater still. But the tax that hurts 
most is the tax on money. It is- not 
paid to government, it is paid to 
private corporations and individuals.. 
This is an eating cancer in the throat of 
Uncle Sam. This is what will kill him. 
if not removed. The other things 'hurt ;. 
but they do not kill. This money tax is 
fatal if let run. 

What then is the remedy? 

First— Abolish the national bank- 

Second— 1 usti tu te an Americ a n 
finance system. 

Bnt what is an American finance svs- 
tem? 

j he first practical thing to do in order- 
to insure the financial independence ofT 
the United (States, is to abandon gold' 
basis, re-establish the free and unlimited 
coinage of silver and increase the amountr 
of legal tender paper money to the exr 
tent of supplying immediately the press- 
ing needs of the farmers for money. 
How? 

By loans (1) to the states, by the gen- 
eral government; (2) by the "states to- 
the counties, and (3) by the counties to 
the farmers— precisely as the school 
fund is loaned— the state paying the gen- 
eral government (let us say) one per 
cent interest annually for the money, 
the counties paying the state twe per 
cent, and the farmers paying the comities 
three per cent. The principal never to- 
be demanded of the borrowers as long as 
the interest is met. But the farmers ought 
to receive loans from the government at 
as low rates as the banks pay on their 
"circulation" — i. e. one per cent, or 
without interest, like the sixty million 
loan made to "pet banks" by President 
Cleveland. 

How much money shall the state ad- 
vance to the farmers? 

First — Enough to lift all the mort- 
gages from their lands. 

Second— To all who have on their 
lands no incumbrances, the entire val- 
uation, if they desire it, of their lands as- 
heretofore appraised for taxation; and' 
to those who have those incumbrances, 
not less than that amount. 
• Thus would the government become 
de facto owner of the lands. But the- 
de jure ownership of land must be lim- 
ited to a reasonable homestead — say not 
to exceed 320 acres to any one person,, 
and corporations should not be permit- 
ted to own productive or mineral lands. 
But will there not be great danger o® 






an over supply of money? No person 
can have too much monev if he has no 
more than he can invest profitably in 
trade or productive business. But if lie 
has more than he can thus make profit- 
able use of, could he deposit it in a pub- 
lic depository of money established by 
the United States government, the sur- 
plus would thus flow back to its source 
as the water flows back to the sea, 
W hen every money-order postoffice has 
become a savings bank, too much monev 
cannot be put afloat. Every person is 
the best judge of the amount of money 
he can profitably use. For the govern- 
ment to establish a certain per capita 
amount is as far wrong as to say how 
many plows per capita shall be manu- 
factured, or how many railroad engines 
per capita shall be' built. Money is 
a tool. Let the supply equal the 
demand, and let the surplus be laid away 
by the people in Uncle Sam's savings 



( 119 ) 

banks till wanted by the producers, as 
farm implements are put away in the 
barns till wanted for use, or railrojfcd 
engines in the round houses. 

IX. The Conclusion. 

I close this letter by repeating that 
the interests of the producers of America 
must b3 looked after at the national 
capital during the administration oi 
President Harrison, as was promised by 
him and by the party that nominated 
him, and to this end the free coinage o£ 
silver must be inaugurated in good faith T 
and that speedly, to increase the volume 
of our money, that the products of in- 
dustry may bring a fair return for labor 
and capital employed in their produc- 
tion, or, (if I miss not my guess) seven 
millions of intelligent voteis west of the 
Alleghanies " will know the reason why.'* 
Respectfully, 

Leonard Browne 



ESSAY XVI.— SILVER MONEY AND BOND PAYMENT. 



I. The St. Louis Silver Convention. 

A national silver convention was held 
at St. Louis, Nov. 26, 27 and 2S, 1SS9. 
In the preamble and resolutions adopted 
it was declared, " That the demonetiza- 
tion of silver has worked a practical 
violation of every contract then existing 
in the United States, entailed uncounted 
losses, reduced prices more than thirty 
per cent, and its effect is practically to 
make debts perpetual, as it takes from 
the debtor the ability to pay; that it 
causes contraction of the currency, 
which reduces values until there is no 
profit left to the farmer, planter, or 
men of small capital, who depend upon 
the sale of products for return tor their 
labor." 

* * # # 

1 ''That considering the contraction 
caused by the surrender of national bank 
notes during the past three years, 
and the vast sum that must be col- 
lected by the cancellation of government 
bonds during the next three years, the 
necessity of restoring silver is as mani- 
fest as is the justice of such a policy. 

* * * * 

That we believe in equal rights of gold 
and silver and free coinage for both, and 
that as no nation ever had or ever will 
have too much gold and silver coin. 
Now therefore be it 

Resolved, That the Fifty-first Congress 
be requested by this convention to pro- 
vide at its first, session for opening the 
mints of the United States to the free 
and unlimited coinage of standard silver 
dollars of the present weight and fine- 
ness, to be legal teader for all debts, 
public or private, equal with gold, and 



that until such a provision is made, the* 
Secretary of the Treasury be required to 
coin the maximum, $4,000,000 worth 
of silver per month, as now authorized 
by law." 

Mr. Thos. W. Fitch in a speech before- 
the convention said: "After twenty 
years of national prosperity the amount 
of our national debt, measured by the 
number of day's work that would be re- 
quired to pa\ it, is as much as it was in 
18(58. In 1868 the amount of oiu- na- 
tional debt was $2,610,000,000. Wheat 
was worth $1.89 per bushel, cotton 19- 
cents a pound,, pork $27 a barrel, We 
could have paid the national debt then 
with 1,100,000,000 bushels of wheat,. 
100,000,000 barrels of pork or 43,000, 
000 bales of cotton. Since 1868 we 
have paid in dollars $1,480,000,000 of 
the public debt, and there is now left in- 
dollars to pay $1,130,000,000. But 
wheat, cotton and pork have gone down 
in price. It would take as many bush- 
els of wheat, as many bales of cotton, 
as many barrels of pork, as many days" 
labor to pay the balance now due of 
$1,130,000,000 as would have sufficed 
in 1868 to pay the debt of $2,610,000,- 
000. One has but to journey through 
this land to know that amid apparent 
general abundance, amid the vast actual 
increase of general wealth, the laborer is 
not so prosperous or contented, or so 
hopeful as he was in the years which 
immediately succeeded Appomattox. 
For twenty years, or at least sixteen? 
years, in this" republic the laborer has 
been vainly striving to increase tiae 
amount of dollars for his labor, and the 
capitalist has been plotting to increase 
the amount of toil he should receive fort 



( 

his dollars. For sixteen years the mar- 
ket value ©f dollars has gone up and the 
market value of man's labor has gone 
down, until freemen, in the bitterness of 
their wrath, sometimes ask which is the 
greater evil, the black slavery that is 
gone or the white slavery that has come? 
[Applause.] Do I overstate the situa- 
tion? [Many voices "No."] For twenty 
years we have had abundant prosperity, 
but at the end of it we find that wealth 
is centered m a few hands. Has the 
laborer then nothing to show for twenty 
years of toil? Oh, yes, he can boast 
that the aggregate wealth of the nation 
has largely increased. He can boast of 
the factories established, cities erected, 
rivers bridged, mountains tunneled, 
transcontinental highways stretching 
from ocean to ocean. He can call the 
roll of millionaires to-day and thous- 
ands will respond, where, before the war, 
there were less than 500, He can wipe 
the sweat from his weary face and re- 
flect that among the 8,000 millionaires 
may be enumerated the names of twenty 
American citizens who have gathered 
$1,500,000,000 from the toil and tears 
of 00,000,000 of people. [Applause.] 
These twenty men have it in their power- 
to combine their efforts and fix the 
price of every bushel of wheat, every ton 
of coal, and every day's wages of labor 
between the Hudson and the Sacra- 
mento. He can reflect that these twenty 
men have it in their power to name the 
majority of Senators, Congressmen, Gov- 
ernors, Judges, and legislators in twenty 
states. He can jostle his rags against 
the silken garments which his toil has 
made. He can regale his hunger by the 
odors of things which he can not taste. 
He can walk weary and shelterless in the 
shadow of the palace which he built, but 
he may not enter.'** • 

II. The Reduction of the Pwblic Debt. 

" Washington, Nov. 30,— It is estima- 
ted at the treasury department that the 
reduction in the public debt during No- 
vember will amount to $4,000,000. 
The treasury department to-day pur- 
chased $211,800 four per cent bonds at 
127 fiat, and $45,000 four and a half 
per cents at 104" v 8 and interest." 

1 copy the above press dispatch from 
a morning paper. By it we learn the 
astounding fact that the government is 
now paying 27 per cent premium for 
the redemption of its bonds or four 
and and five-eights per cent and interest, 
which I understand to be the balance of 
interest for the time the bonds have yet 
to run to maturity. 

Not less than twenty -seven per cent 
premium has been paid for the $4,000,- 
000 debt redeemed last month, or $1,- 
080,000 given gratuitously to bond- 
owners above the legal or par value of 
their bonds, above the governments' 
written " promise to pay." 



120 ) 

The government has no more right 
(morally and, I belive, no more legally) 
to give even one cent above its written 
obligation than it has to repudiate the 
whole bonded debt— nor has it half as 
much ; for that debt has been many 
times paid already. 

From the Indianapolis Globe of Dec. 
18, 1889,1 take the following figures: 
"The total amount lent the Government 
by the money-leuders was $2,375,447.- 
763. The bond-holders have had paid 
back to them in principal and interests 
as follows : 

Principal $1,601,549,563 

Interest 2,498,172,553 

Total $4,109,722,116 

They have still in their hands : 
$126,609,350 4% per cent 

bonds, worth at market 

rates (105*3) $133,889,289 

$647 ,288,850 of 4 per cent 

at market rates ($1.27; 822,056,839 

Total returns on invest- 
ment of $2,375,447,763. $5,065, 668, 242 

While the money-lenders have received 
over fo-ir thousand million dollars in 
principal and interest for the loan of 
$2,375,447,763 of depreciated dollars, 
they still have on hand bonds almost 
equaling the gold valuation of their orig- 
inal loan! Verily ' to him that hath 
it shall be given.' " 

It may be properly stated also that 
while the bond-holders have received in- 
terest to the amount of $2,498,172,553, 
the total amount paid by the United 
States government to the disabled sol- 
diers and widows and orphans of the 
dead veterans from 1864 to 1880, 
equals $458,166,301.02, or a little 
more than one-sixth of the amount paid 
in interest on bonds, as a, pension to the 
rich, bestowed to reward them for their 
lending the government depreciated 
greenbacks to be repaid in appreciated" 
gold coin, which, when rightly looked 
into, is seen to be a steal as infamous 
as burglary or highway robbery. And 
then, for the disabled soldiers and their 
widows, orphans and dependent parents 
of those who fell in battle or died of 
wounds or of disease contracted in the 
army, to be grudgingly and meagerly 
supported, and the policy of caring for 
them denounced by the metropolitan 
press, subsidized bv the bond-holders 
who live on "fixed incomes," (pensions) 
off the tax-payers, is a little too much 
for the patriotic to put up with, with 
equanimity. 

III. A Great Wrong. 

President Harrison in his late message 
tells us that " During the fiscal year 
there was applied to the purchase of 
bonds, in addition to those for the sink- 
ing fund, $90,456,172.35, and during 



( 181 ) 



the Srat quarter of the current year the 
sum of $37,838,957.77, all of which 
were credited to the sinking fund." By 
paying this amount of monej- to the 
bond-owners, how much has been can- 
celled of the bonded debt? The ninety 
million and more plus the thirty-seven 
million and more of money paid, equal 
$12S, 295,130.02. At twenty-seven per 
cent premium on bonds this cancels 
SI' n ,019,787.41 of bonded debt, leav- 
ing to the fortunate " pet bankers" the 
magnificent donation of $27,275,31 2. 01 
gold. What is this but barefaced rob- 
bery of the many 1o enrich the few? Hut 
it is in line with the whole financial pol- 
icy « >f the government at Washington 
ever since the close of the civil war. 

No amount of special pleading can 
sho" this robbery to be justifiable. Ag- 
ricultural lands, and all other produc- 
tive property, and all the products of 
labor and labor itself, are greatly depre- 
ciated in value, and the lands are mort- 
gage: t to the bond-owners, while bonds 
bear a premium of twenty -seven per 
cent., the government being the chief 
purchaser! This is wrong. The Pres- 
ident of the United States knows it is 
wrong. The Secretary of the Treasury 
liDO>vs it is wrong The members of 
both House and Senate all know it 
is wrong. Every politician and every 
editor of a political paper knows it is 
wrong. We all know it is wrong. 

Why, then, is it done? It is done be- 
cause the money-lenders control. They 
dictate the nomination of presidents and 
of members of Congress, etc., etc., and 
coutiibute most of the campaign funds — 
<cpntrol the state legislatures — rule 
Am-rica. Why? Because the people are 
asleijj. Because they are hood-winked. 
Becaise party spirit has greater influ- 
ence with them than patriotism and 
self-interest. The money-lenders control 
the machinery of party, while the people 
merely record at the ballot-box the dic- 
tum of the party "bosses;" and the 
" bosses" are the obsequious lickspits of 
the money-lenders— their paid pimps— 

1 " Vermin that crawl to do their bidding. " 

No wonder that bold burglary, like the 
payment of the bonds at twenty-seven 
pe-- ent premium, is committed by the 
Secretary of the Treasury in broad day- 
light, when we have the testimony of 
the Rev. Joseph Cook in his Monday 
lee tii re in Tremont temple, Boston, Feb. 
3. 1S90, that " Two thousand capital- 
ists own more than all the rest of the 
sixty five millions ot our population. 
Two hundred and fifty thousand rich 
men control seventy-tire per cent oi the 
national wealth. The American repub- 
lic is therefore practically owned by less 
than one quarter of a million of persons. 
If present causes which produce concen- 
tration of capital continue, the republic 
will soon be owned by less than fifty 
tho&sand men." This "is the most as- 



tounding fact of history, ancient or mod- 
ern, that in the space of a quarter of a 
century, in a republic founded on equal- 
ity with equal opportunities, believed to 
be open to all, two thousand men should 
come to be possessed of more wealth 
than all the balance of sixty-five mill- 
ions of people. Has there not occurred 
something radically wrong to bring 
about such a result? Does any sane 
man believe that with less than fifty 
thousand men owning the Republic the 
people will continue to govern? This is 
a terrible fact to stare us in the face. 
What will the sixty-five millions do when 
they awaken to find themselves disin- 
herited? When they awaken to find 
that the American republic is owned 
(and, of course, governed,) by less than 
fifty thousand men ! To-day '• two 
hundred and fifty thousand rich men 
control seventy-five per cent of the na- 
tional wealth !" Now, either that two 
hundred and fifty thousand must be dis- 
possessed of the^ control of that wealth, 
or the sixty- five millions must be for- 
ever slaves. 

The causes of this centralization of 
wealth in the hands of the few are not 
difficult to understand, the chief among 
them being currency contraction, which 
has enhanced the value of money and 
destroyed that of productive property 
so that (as stated by Mr Fitch) though 
more than one-half of our bonded debt 
has been paid "it would take as many 
bushels of wheat, as many bales of cot- 
ton, as many barrels of pork, as many 
days' labor to pay the balance now due 
of $1,130,000,000 as would have suf- 
ficed in 1868 to pay the debt of $2,610.- 
000." 

When we consider that all debts must 
be paid in labor and the products of 
labor, the magnitude of the wrong dona 
the producers dawns upon our mind.-. 
Secretary Windom tells us that the na- 
tional banking corporations have re- 
tired their circulation since 1878 to th t 
amount of $114,000,000, which is more 
than ten millions yearly. The loss to 
the people of the amount already paid 
on the public debt of $1,480,000,000 is 
not a tithe of their loss. All indebted- 
ness has been euhanced in value in like 
proportion by currency contraction. 
This increase in the burden of debt has 
not been less than $13,000,000,000— a 
clean loss to the producers and a clean 
gain to the money-lenders of that vast 
sum. 

Can we wonder that the peoples' voice 
is no longer heard or obeyed at Wash- 
ington, and that the Mississippi valley 
is practically unrepresented in'Congress? 
I challenge any man to name, in the two 
houses, ten members that represent 
western oj; southern interests, either by 
vote or voice. They do nothing except 
when put forward to lead in the betrayal 
of western and southern interests. This 
is not a petulent speecli. It is not exag- 



geration. It is the sober truth. The in- 
terests of the two thousand capitalists 
who " own more than ail the rest of the 
six-live millions of our population" are 
alone regarded at Washington. "The 
two hundred and fifty thousand rich 
men, controlling seventy-five per cent of 
the national wealth," control seventy- 
fire per cent ot the votes in Congress " 
"The American republic is therefore 
practically owned" (and governed) "by 
less than a quarter of a million of per- 
sons." " If present causes, which pro- 
duce concentration of capital, continue, 
the republic will soon be owned" (and 
governed) " by less than fifty thousand 
men," 

Our fathers in 1776 had not before 
them so appalling a contest as confronts 
us to-day. We have the combined, con- 
solidated money power of the world to 
'fight against, bent upon our everlasting 
enslavement; and that power has en- 
listed on its side President, Cabinet, Con- 
gress and the Supreme Court, State leg- 
islatures, Governors and Judges— as a 
rule (to which the exceptions are fear- 
fully few); and that power, like a mighty 
serpent, has entwined itself about the 
bodies and limbs of our people, and it 
holds them to-day in its deadly coils. 
Our country is Laocoon and his sons ; 
and the serpents coiled about them are 
the great money " trust" of Europe and 
America. 

IV. Give the Producers a Chance. 

"The $27,275,342.61 gratuity to bond- 
owners, bestowed in the last sixteen 
months, would go a great way toward 
paying off the mortgages on the Iowa, 
Kansas, Nebraska and Minnesota 
farms. Why not the government give 
this sum gratis to western farmers, 
rather than gratis to eastern millionaire 
bond-owners? Whose government ought 
this be, anyway? and for whose benefit 
administered? Those millions, and 
other imillions— yea billions— have al- 
ready been given gratuitously to bond- 
owners— why not now the government, 
in the same spirit of liberality to the 
iarmers as it shows to bankers-^cancel 
the mortgages against the western farms? 
Will the people submit always to be 
thus bankrupted by law that the few 
may be enriched? Must they be victims 
to this kind of robbery forever? Their 
farms will soon all be sold at sheriff's 
outcry by foreclosure of mortgages. The 
people will soon be dispossessed of their 
inheritance. They will soon all be serfs 
and slaves to foreign usurers. Tney are 
so already. 

But it is strange that in states entirely 
agricultural, like Kansas, Nebraska, 
Iowa and the Dakotas, the people 
do not rule; and if in these states they 
do not, where may they rule? Trie 
Omaha Bee, a leading anti-monopoly 
paper of the great prairie states, makes, 



122 ) 



in a late number, the following sad dis- 
closure in an able editorial article. It 
says : " The senate of the United States 
has become a house of lords, and the 
house of representatives the house of 
corporation lawyers. Our state legisla- 
tures, even when composed largely of 
farmers, as they are in Iowa, Nebraska 
and the Dakotas, are manipulated by 
corrupt lobbies and bulldozed into sub- 
jection by the domineering corporation 
managers. Within a few years these 
states have been converted into mere 
railroad preserves, and state conven- 
tions have simply been ratification meet- 
ings to endorse the choice of the railroad 
bos-es." The people have almost reach- 
ed a condition of despair; and it has be- 
come a common saying, " money will 
rule." It will if it can, of course; and it 
can if it 'will, provided we sit still and 
make no effort to be heard and our voice- 
heeded in the halls of legislation. The 
success of the Grange movement in 1871 
proves that earnest effort will not be in 
vain. But while we continue to nomin- 
ate and elect candidates to the legisla- 
ture and to congress, not for their fit- 
ness, but because they want the places; 
and are rich, using their money freely 
employing runners to go over the coun- 
try to secure "the farmers' support," 
just so long will "money rule." 

The millionaires have their hands 
upon the helm and they guide witherso- 
ever they will, the Old Ship of State.. 
Every cent given them beyond their just 
dues, beyond the legal value of their 
bonds increases to that extent the power 
of the plutocrats (who are omnipotent 
at Washington now), and diminishes to 
that extent the power of the people (v ho 
are powerless at Washington now). 

Of the $60,000,000 public money de- 
posited, without interest, in favored 
national banks by President Cleveland, 
President Harrison says : " Ihe loan- 
ing of public funds to the banks without 
interest upon the security of government 
bonds, I regard as an unauthorized and 
dangerous expedient. It results in a 
temporary and unnatural increase of 
the banking capital of favored localities- 
and compels a cautious and gradual re- 
call of the deposits to avoid injur; to 
the commercial interests. It is nut to be 
expected that the banks having these de- 
posits will sell their bonds to the treas- 
ury so long as the present highly ben- 
eficial arrangement is continued. They 
now practically get interest both upon 
the bonds and their proceeds. No fur- 
ther use should be made of this -method 
of getting the surplus into circulation 
and the deposits now outstanding should 
be gradually withdrawn and applied to 
the purchase of bonds. It is fortunate 
that such use can be made of the exist- 
ing surplus, and for sometime to come 
of any casual surplus that may exist 
after Congress has taken the necessary 
. steps for a reduction of the revenue.'' 



( 123 ) 



It is wrong then, according to Pres- 
ident Harrison, for the bond-owners to 
'get interest, both upon the bonds and 
their proceeds." But is not this very 
thing done when, upon the deposit: of 
bonds, ninety per ceat is returned in (so- 
called) ''bank bills" excepting that one 
per cent, annual interest (tax) is paid by 
the banks ''on their circulation?" 

But President Harrison's Secretary of 
Treasury (Mr. Wind om), in spite of'the 
president's condemnation of the princi- 
ple, says that "this tax is unjust to the 
banks;" and he asks Congress' to lift the 
burden off the shoulders of the oppressed 
bankers— which would be to deposit 
with them "without interest, on the 
security of bonds" between four and 
jive hundred millions of quasi legal- 
tender money "as valuable as gold," 
the bankers " getting interest, both 
upon the bonds and their proceeds." 

0, Uncle 8am, 

"Wny do your doys bark so? Be there bears 
1 the town?" 1 

I copy the following press dispatch : 
"Washington, Dec. 4.— Secretary AVin- 
dom has received letters from three na- 
tional bank depositories in response to 
his notice of the withdrawal of 10 per- 
cent of the government's deposits on 
January 15. One bank surrenders tne 
entire amount on deposit and offered to 
sell the government $300,000 of 4 per 
cent bonds at SI 27. Another offered to 
sell $50,000 at the same figure.. Both 
offers were accepted. The third bank 
waived the 10 per cent privilege and de- 
clared its intention to sell the govern- 
ment its $110,000 security bonds at 
prevailing rates. The treasury officials 
think this prompt action is probablv 
due to the fact that there will be a re- 
duction of 1 per cent in the premium on 
4 per cents after the 1st of January." 

In this manner does Secretary Windom 
make way with President Cleveland's 
$60,000,000 deposit with "pet banks"— 
27 per cent of it a present to the "pets"— 
amounting to $12,755,904.73! And they 
are pets still — feti on sugar-plums of 
gold! They have only to speak the 
magic word "sesarae," and the doors of 
Uncle Sam's money vaults lly open to 
them as wide under President Harrison, 
as under President Cleveland, while the 
people are fed on husks "fit only for 
swine to eat.'.' 

V. A "Substantial Advantage." 

But the president says: " We should 
not collect revenue for the purpose of 
anticipating our bonds or the require- 
ments of the sinking fund. But any un- 
appropriated surplus in the treasury 
should be used so, as there is no other 
lawful way of returning the money to 
circulation, and the profit realized, by 
the government offers substantial ad- 
vantage.-' 

A "substantial advantage" to the 



governni3nt to redeem its bonds at a 
premium of 27 per cent! "Any unap- 
propriated surplus in the treasury sho uld 
be used SO, as there is no other lawful 
way of returning the money to circula- 
tion. 

Why is there " no other lawful wav of 
returning the money to circulation?" 
And in what is the profit? And where 
the advantage? 

Is it accidental that there is "no other 
lawful way of returning the money to 
circulation," than for the government to- 
buy up its own bonds at a premium of 
27 per cent?— or was this condition of 
things brought about designedly by t he- 
authors of the funding scheme, that has* 
brought ruin upon our country? What- 
ever has resulted, as the outcome of our 
monetary system, has come about by 
design of the authors of that system. 

The ostensible reason for thus squan- 
dering the public revenue is that the 
bonds hav^ yet many years to run, and 
the interest on them to maturity would 
amount to 27 per cent or more. The 
government, having a "surplus," would 
as well, (it is argued by the bultionists- 
and their attorneys in high places) pay 
the whole in a lump now as by peace- 
meal in vears to come, and " the profit 
realized by the government (they saj 
offers substantial advantage." 

Is money worth nothing to the people 
from whom it has been extorted by tax- 
ation Western farmers are paying now*- 
on mo rtgages f rom 8 to 40per cent annu a j 
interest, to these same bond-owning; 
usurers, toward whom the government 
is so over-generous. The western farm- 
ers would gladly pay the government 
4 and 5 per cent annual interest for : 
loan of all the surplus now m the treas- 
ury, or that may be accumulated until 
the time the bonds become due. "And' 
any unappropriated surplus in the treas- 
ury should be used so," I think. It is a 
"lawful way of returning the money to> 
circulation, and the profit realized by 
the government" (the people— if it be 
" lawful" any longer to call the "people" 
the government) offers substantial ad- 
vantage " to them." If the government 
may "lawfully" lend bankers money at 
one per cent to the amount of $400,000;- 
000, upon the security of government 
bonds, it may as lawfully lend farmer? 
money at one percent on the security of 
. agricultural lands. The government 
may do whatever is tor the "greatest 
good to the greatest number," rather 
than for the greatest good of the few, 
or it is a tyranny. If it may borrow of 
individuals, it may lend to individuals. 
It does both borrow money of and lend 
money to individuals. But those indi- 
viduals are a favored class— "pets." 
Why not lend money to land-owners as 
well as to bond-owners? on the security 
of lands, as on the security of bonds? and 
at as favorable rates, say $60,000,000 
without interest, and making tke land- 



( 124 ) 



owners a present of 27 per cent of that 
when calling it in, as Mr. Windorn is now 
doing to bankers; and $400,000,000 at 
one per cent interest (tax) per annum 
for 20, 40, 60, 80, 100 -yea 1,000 years 
for that matter, as it has done by the 
bankers "on the security of bonds," who 
"get interest, both upon the bonds and 
their proceeds." Let the many have 
equal benefits of government and law 
that are accorded to a favored few. 
That is all I ask. That is all the people 
want. That will free them from debt. 
That will make them prosperous and 
■happy. 

VI. The Obligation to Tax Payers 
Repudiated. 

By legislation the government can des- 
troy the value of its bonds so that they 
will sell even lower than 27 per cent be- 
low par; as by legislation it destroyed 
the value of silver so that silver sells at 
35 per cent below par. Why did gov- 
ernment destroy the value of silver? It 
was done at the command of British 
.gold owners. The increased value of 
bonds above par has been legislated into 
them at the command of the foreign 
usurers. Our government has as clear a 
right to legislate value out of the bonds 
in the interest of the tax-payers, and 
then, in their interest, buy them in at 
:27 per cent discount (as it has done with 
silv r, in the interest of the gold owners, 
buying it in at 35 per cent discount) as 
it has to legislate value into bonds in 
the interest of bond-owners, as it has 
done, and buying them in at 27 per 
cent premium to enrich bankers. 

But what wo aid be said if govern- 
ment bought in its own obligations at 
27 per cent discount, having first depre- 
ciated them by "unfavorable legisla- 
tion?" The cry of "repudiation" would 
be raised by every bond owner and by 
eve y subsidized newspaper editor in the 
land. But has not the government re- 
pudiated its obligations to the tax-pay- 
ers by giving more than "face value" 
for its written obligation to boncl- 
o<vners? What do the subsidized news- 
paper editors say about this? Thev sav 
nothing. 

Is it because there is no other " lawful 
way" of getting into circulation the two 
millions of silver coined monthly, than 
through the agency of banks, that have 
combined to prevent it, that the mil- 
lions are hoarded, to the bursting of the 
money vaults at Washington, and the 
object of silver coinage (which was to in- 
<rase constantly the circulation) is de- 
feated? Why is not an order made by 
the {secretary of the Treasury to pay all 
pensions of twelve dollars per month 
and under in standard silver coin? This 
would put in circulation about $50,000,- 
000 .yearly. The soldiers and widows 
would gladly take their pittance in legal- 
■tender silver, if they knew it was so paid 



in order to defeat the robber banks in 
their nefarious schemes to nullify the 
laws and prevent the distribution of 
silver currency; because they would feel 
that they were patriotically serving 
their country, and in as good a, cause 
as cost the loss of arm, leg or life of the 
soldier. 

Why were the bonds that the govern- 
ment is now paying 27 per cent prem- 
ium for, buying them in the market and 
keeping up thus their price—not made 
payable at the option of the government, 
as the three per cent's were? Certainly 
they could have been sold, if the three 
per cent call bonds were sold. 

Seven hundred million dollars of the 
pubMc debt became due in 1878, that 
was payable in " lawful money" (green- 
backs). Of course "call bonds" bearing 
interest at four per cent could have 
been exchanged for all the "lawful 
money" bonds then mature.' There 
would be to-day no mortgages on west- 
ern farms and an unprecedented pros- 
perity would now prevail universally in 
our country if that seven hundred mil- 
lion dollars of debt had been paid 
in 1878 in "lawful money" (greenbacks) 
according to law and the obligation of - 
the government to the people not repu- 
diated. But it was placed in its present 
condition intentionally by the Secretary 
of the Treasury (Mr. Sherman) and a 
recreant Congress, to keep up the price 
of bonds and to keep down the price of 
labor and labor products, that the rich 
might grow richer and the poor poorer, 
and to afford future Secretaries of the 
Treasury a pretext (that Mr. Wmdom 
now takes advantage of) to squander 
hundreds of millions of the peoples' 
money in gifts to bond-owners, literally 
burglarizing the national treasury "ac- 
cording to law." 

VII. The Summing Up. 

By a simple process has the Boacdn- 
strictor (the British gold-trust) slimed 
over and swollowed down into its rav- 
enous stomach all the productive wealth 
of the United States, until " two thous- 
and capitalists own more than a.M the 
rest of the sixty-five millions of our pop- 
ulation." Given the control and own- 
nershipof a nation's finance, and the ulti- 
mate ownership and control of all a 
nation's wealth by the owners, con- 
trollers and manipulators of the na- 
tion's finance is as demonstratable as 
the plainest geometrical proposition. 
That the American people have turned 
over the control of this most important 
interest to the aold-barons of Europe 
and their Wall street agents* and con- 
tinued it in their hands for more than 
twenty years, is a strange thing. 

There is no other interest equal in im- 
portance to the control of the finance. 
If our people will not see this, and if there 
must continue to be a " money, P ^ 1 " 



( 125 ) 



distinct from the whole people, controll- 
ing this great interest and drawing from 
production in our country more than a 
billion dollars annually through the 
channel of usury, then we may as well 
lay down our weapons of warfare in des- 
pair and acknowledge the patent fact 
that the American republic has ceased 
to exist. The national banking law- 
passed while the attention of the people 
was engrossed with the most gigantic 
civil war ever known, amounted to the 
surrender of all the wealth of the nation 
and all the power of the people into the 
hands of a few rich men. principally agents 
of foreign bankers. Those insatiable 
Anglo-Americau plutocrats, are to-day 
the absolute rulers and lords of our coun- 
try. They can bring bankruptcy and ruin 
immediately to every man's door, if they 
will. How many voters realize that 
they occupy the same position in rela- 
tion to the money power (speaking fig- 
uratively^ as the people of Johnstown, 
Pennsylvania, did to the reservoir above 
them? But such is our present situation 
and deplorable condition. 

The complete emancipation of labor 
will come about finally when both gold 
and silver have been demonetized — when 
the only money is legal-tender scrip, is- 
sued directly to the people in loans by 
government, on long time at a nom- 
inal rate of interest, amounting to a very 
light tax on production, and placing 
W equal advantages within the reach of 
W all. Gold and silver will have no value, 
demonetized, save as metals used in the 
arts — the only value they ought to have. 
Their price will be low, for their uses are 
not many nor essential. But when will 
the niuety-and-nine see this? When will 
they see that to demonetize gold and 
silver both will destroy the money power 
effectually? Intil they see this . the 
ninety-and-niue will be slaves to the one, 
but when they do once see it, and act 
upon it, the one will have no advantage 
over the ninety -and-nine, and all slavery 
will cease. 

Deluded people to cry "gold aud silver 
the only money !" Rather proclaim 
gold and silver no longer money, if you. 
would be free, prosperous and happy. 
O workers, think, reason and act upon 
this supreme proposal — the demonetiza- 
tion of the so-called "precious metals." 
It is the most important measure that 
can be carried out for the social and 
economic welfare of mankind. 

The capitalists play fast and loose- 
now in one country securing, to suit 
their robber purposes, the demonetiza- 
tion of gold, in another, of silver. Let 
the people free themselves from slavery 
and deal a death blow to trie money 
power by demonetizing both. Let all 
interest- bearing bonds be done away. 
Let the people become the common 
owners of all railroads, telegraph, tele- 
phones, bonanza farms, and mineral 
and coal lands by paying the present so- 



called "owners" for them in non-inter- 
est-bearing government demand notes, 
to be redeemed in the " lawful money of 
the United States" at the option of the 
holders of the notes. Then, having es- 
tablished as the result of the legal-tender 
system of money, co-operative produc- 
tion and co-operative distribution of 
products, having instituted universally, 
by means of protective laws, co-oper- 
ative manufacturing, co-operative min- 
ing, co-operative farming, co-operative 
stores, etc., having systematized the 
social arrangements so that harmony 
will result in consequence of each indi- 
vidual of which society is composed, 
having his exactly equal share of all 
benefits that of right should be common 
— the work of the social reformer will 
be happily finished, and the sentinel on 
the watch-tower of freedom can pro- 
claim " all is well." 

The key to the solution of the labor 
problem is finance. The tax paid for 
the tool, money, would better go to sup- 
port government than to build up the 
wealth of the Rothchilds and Barings, 
a money power— to dominate the world 
and extinguish the freedom of mankind. 
Let all the cost of money rather accrue 
to the benefit of the state, and not to 
the building up of the wealth of individ- 
ual " usurers" — to pensioning the widows 
and orphans ana not to supplying. 
" fixed incomes" to millionaire barons. 
• Figure what is paid by the people in in- 
terest on bonds, national, state, city, 
railroad, etc., etc., (and the laborers 
pay all) and on promissory notes se- 
cured by mortgages on houses, lands. 
etc., and you reach a sum far in excess 
of all taxation for the support of gov- 
ernment, including the cost of adminis- 
tering the laws and paying pensions, 
maintaining schools aud supporting the 
dependent poor, aud all other legitimate 
governmental expenses.-' Let so much 
of this be turned into the common treas- 
ury, by means of an equitable finance 
system, as is required to meet the de- 
mands of government, and let the bal- 
ance be retained in the pockets of the 
producers to enrich them. In a word, 
destroy usury and save to the people all 
that now goes through that broad chan- 
nel, to enrich the few. 

VIII. A Conservative Proposal. 

But the practical thing to do right 
now is (1) to insist upon the restoration 

* The estimated interest-bearing indebtedness 
of the people of the United State*, in twwnty-3iz 
billion dollars, and the estimated anuual inter- 
es is two billion Sve hundred tuoucand dollars. 
To pay this annual interest, would r. quire fifteen 
billion bushel* ot com, which, at 600 bushels per 
oar, would load i went) -five million cars, whicn 
would make a trajn nenrly 190 000 miles long, 
and would reach around, the globe 7 3-5 times. 
At thi ty bushels per acre, it would require five 
hundred millions of acres to raise it- equal to- 
mo'e than twelve of the largest stales in lb* 
Union:— F. li. Wjt,son. 



( 126 ) 



of silver to its ancient seat by the side 
of gold. Great mining interests are 
involved, and the Rocky Mount- 
ain states and territories will be 
enlisted to help in this fight against the 
money power of the old world. Bat 
whatever may be the a mourn of silver 
and gold coined, the business of our 
country will require an enormous sup- 
ply of paper money. This should be no 
•other than legal-tender government 
■scrip. 

But (2) if the money power cannot be 
overcome except by an extraordinary 
uprising of the masses,) which I appre- 
hend will be the case) and there is a strug- 
gle impending unprecedented in our his- 
tory, by the time that struggle is con- 
cluded the people will have become so 
-disgusted with the avarice and want of 
patriotism of the gold owners— that is 
to say, eastern syndicates of bankers — 
the agents of the British money lords. 
that they will not stop short of doing 
what will have become a necessity — they 
will do away entirely with specie. 

But the mining interests belong to 
America, whi'e the money-lending inter- 
ests have their head-center in Lombard 
street, London. Patriotism demands 
that we protect our mines and encour- 
age their development. Patriotism de- 
,mands also that we strike down, as we 
would a venomous reptile, the money- 
lending vampire. Encourage the invest- 
ment of money in productiveenterprises 
•of all kinds; but let no man be protected 
in money lending. Yet, the way to put 
.a stop to usury is not to ordain penalties, 
but to supply wants. The reader by 
this time fully understands what remedy 
I would apply. Just let the government, 
I repeat, do by the many as now it does 
by the few — lend money to the many as 
now it lends money to the few. Let no 
middle-man stand between the govern- 
ment and the people, to get rich by re- 
ceiving money from the government at 
one per cent interest, (or free of interest, 
like the sixty million loan,) and lending 
at out to producers at from 8 to 40 per 
<cent. Farming out money to the few 
at a nominal rent and giving the few the 
power to "rack rent it" out to the 
many, as is now the policy and practice 
of the government, must cease in this 
republic, and that speedily. The masses 

\ ill endure it no longer. f 

'A friend of mine, a national banker, caUs my 
attention t •' ■ °titement made on the 58th page 
of this wo- that ' the one per cent per annum 
tax paid 'ythena onal bankers to the United 
States g> vern .i .-at for their bank currency 
hardly re-en* worses the government for the cost 
«of printing tLe bills.'" He says that I am far 
wrong in saying this because ex-comptroller 
Knox declares that one per cent tax paid by the 
vanke amounted in seven years to sixteen 'mill- 
ion dollars. Of course printing the bills, he 
-3ayp, would not cost sixteen million dollars in 
seven yoars. The " printing ot the bille 1 '' may 
not cost so much. But I did not mean to include 
that item of cost alone. 1 meant to say that it does 
not pay the people to give to the bankers so much 
£ov so little. Let me figure; $16,000,000 is one 



"In principle radical; in action con- 
servative," will be the motto of the pro- 
ducers. We will make moderate de- 
mands. If not acceded to, history will 
repeat itself. Radical measures will re- 
sult of necessity as followed the moderate 
demand in 1860 that slavery be not 
further extended. If the insatiable greed 
of the money lenders is still to run ri< t 
as it has done for twenty -seven 
past, and there is to be no let up - if 
avarice of the gold owners— if there is no 
hope of compromise with the en^iuy— 
then we must and will cut the Gordtan 
knot— we must and will abolish specie. 

The gold monopolists will, if possible, 
bring on a civil war rather than let go 
their hold We must be on our watch- 
ful guard to prevent this. The only 
peaceful way out of our bondage is by 
organization, combination and unity of 
action. To be explicit : The Farmers' 
Alliance, the Grange and the Wheel must 
be made to comprehend the entire agri- 
cultural interest, north and south, east 
and west. The Knights of Labor and 
Trades Unions must bring within their 
circles all the wage earners. The great 
mining associations interested in « level- 
oping the silver resources of the Rocky 
Mountain states and territories must be 
orga.nized for aggressive work. These 
associations of American toilers— farm- 
ers, wage workers and silver producers, 
must join hands. They must convene 
in joint assemblage. They must state 
plainly their demands, and then compel 
the existing parties to "fall in" or sub- 
mit to be annihilated. 

That is my remedy. We need not pro- 
pose to build up a "new party." That 
will take care of itself. When once a 
majority of the voters of America com- 
bine — as in 1871 they did combine m the 
Grange — and agree upon any one thing 
to be achieved, that thing Avill be achiev- 
ed. The Grange produced a revolution 
in the decisions of courts. Before that 
time the voice of railroad corporations 
was the voice of a deity that seemed 
omnipotent. Since that time the rail- 
road corporations have not been om- 
nipotent. % To-day the voice of thebank- 

per cent of $1,600,000 000. This amount put in 
circulation as loans at l'> Der cent, equals $16*).- 
000,000 interest which,l as fcl«,000,000,equa!s $H1- 
000,000 gain. This is haruiv fair to Uncle Sam as> a 
partner in the business, lor printing the bills, 
punishing counterfeiters, paying the expense of 
inaugurating and protecting the business of 
natioaal banking, he receives $16,000,000 while the 
'•middle-man ,, standing between him and the 
people, and who could very well be dispensed 
with, receives $160,000,000! Of course the banker 
bv selling his bonds at 127 per cent and lending 
ihe proceeds at 8 and 10 per cent might do 
equally as well. But thera is no use of this higU 
price of bonds and money. 

*Before the link is hardly dry of the above 
comes the report of the ruling of the U. S. Su- 
preme court in tbe Minnesota railroad rate law 
case, which nullifies and reverse* the decisions 
of former courts in the noted granger caees, ah t 
remands the farmers again to slavery to the cor- 



lag corporations is the voice of n, god no 
less seemingly omnipotent. Let that 
Moloch be cast dowa in the same way 
that the railroad idol was overthrown — 
by united action of the awakened pro- 
ducers. 

IX. The Dawx of a New Day. 

The great movement that will disen- 
thrall the American producers has al- 
ready begun. 

St. Louis, Mo., Dec. G, 1880.— Agree- 
ment made (his day by and between the 
undersigned committees representing the 
.National Farmers" Alliance and Indus- 
• trial Union on the one part and the un- 
dersigned committee representing the 
Knights of Labor on the other part. 

Witnesseth: The undersigned commit- 
tee, representing the Kuights of Labor, 
having read the demands of the National 
Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union, 
which are embodied in this agreement. 
hereby endorse the same on behalf of 
the Knights of Labor, and for the pur- 
pose of giving practical effect to the de- 
mands herein set forth, the legislative 
committees of both organizations will 
act in conceit before Congress for the 
purpose of securing the enactment of 
laws in harmony with the demands mu- 
tually agreed. 

And it is further agreed, that in order 
to carry out these objects, we will sup- 
port for office only such men as can be 
-depended upon to enact these principles 
into statute law uninfluenced by party 
•caucus. 

The demands are as follows: 

1. That we demand the abolitiou of 
national banks, and the substitution of 
legal tender treasury notes in lieu of na- 
tional bank notes, issued in sufficient 
volume to do the business of the coun- 
try on a cash system; regulating the 
amount needed on a per capita basis as 
the business interests of the country ex- 
pand; and that all money issued by the 
government shall be legal tender in pay- 
ment of all debts, public and private. 

2. That we demand that Congress 
shall pass such laws as shall effectually 
prevent the dealing in futures of all agri- 
cultural and mechanical productions: 
preserving a stringent system of proced- 
ure of trial as shall secure the prompt 
conviction, and imposing such penalties 
as shall secure the most perfect compli- 
ance with the law. 

o. That we demand the free and un- 
limited coinage of silver. 

porations. The work of packing the Supreme 
Court to favor railroad and banking corporations 
has been going on lor twenty years, until now 
the federal court is :is devoted to" king monopoly 
as was the notorious Jeffries devoted to King 
James the Second of England, over two hundred 
years ago. Nothing short oi the utter destruc- 
tion of the railroad corporations and the insti- 
tution of government ownership of the highways 
of traffic will insure the oeople against extortion 
and robbery, and settle the railroad Question 
satisfactorily and permanently. 



1. That we demand the passage o 
laws prohibiting alien ownership of land, 
and that Congress take early steps to 
devise some plan to obtain all lands 
now owned by aliens and foreign syndi- 
cates; and that all lands now held by 
railroads and other corporations in ex- 
cess of such as is actually used and 
needed by them be reclaimed by the gov- 
ernment and held for actual settlers 
only . 

5. Believing in the doctrine of " equal 
rights to all and special privileges to 
none," we demand that taxation, Na- 
tional or State ) shall not be used to 
build up one interest or class at the 
expense of another. 

We believe the money of the country 
should be kept as much as possible in 
the hands of the people, and hence we 
demand that all revenues, National, 
State or County, shall be limited to the 
necessary expenses of the government, 
economically and honestly administered. 
(). That Congress issue a sufficient- 
amount of fractional paper currency to 
fa.ciliate exchange through the medium 
of the United States mail. 

7. That the means of communication 
and transportation shall be owned by 
and operated in the interest of the peo- 
ple, as is the United States postal sys- 
tem. 

For the better protection of the inter- 
ests of the two organizations, it is mu- 
tually agreed that such seals or emblems 
as the National Alliance and Industrial 
Union of America will adopt will be re- 
cognized and protected in transit or oth- 
erwise by the Knights of Labor, and 
that all seals and labels of the Knights of 
Labor will, in like manner, be recognized 
by the members of the N. F. A. and I. U. A. 
(Signed) S. B. Irwin, Chm. 

IT. S. Hall, J. D. Hatfield, 

J. D. Hammond, S. B. Alexander, 
F.M. Blunt, D. K. Nonis, 

B. H. Clover, Stump Ashbv, 

M. Page, E. F. Peck, 

J. K. Miles, K. C. Betty, 

W. H. Barton, W. S. Morgan, 
N. A. Dunning, J. H. Turner, 
M. Adams, A. S. Mann. 

Who compose the Committeee on De- 
mands of the N. F. A. and I. U. 

T. V. Powderlv, 
A. W. Wright; 
Balph. Beaumont, 
Representing Knights of Labor. 
I consider this movement the most 
important that has taken place in our 
country for more than a quarter of a 
century. Let the people, north and 
south," rally round the old flag and re- 
peat in concert of song: 
"Though maay and bright the the stars that ap- 
pear 
In that nag by our country unfurled; 
And the stripes that are swelling in majesty there 

Lite a rainbow adorning the world; 
Their light is unsullied, as those in the sky, 

By a deed that our fathers haye done ; 
And they're leagued iu as true and as holy a tie, 
In their motto of "Mar. y in One.*' 



( 128 ) 



We are "Many in one" while there % i:te.-6 a star 

In the blue ol' the h-aveae above; 
And tyrants shall quail 'mid their dungeone afar, 

When i hey gaze on that motto of love. 
It eh 11 gleam on ihe sen, mul the bolts of the 
storm — 

Over tempest, and battle, and wreck — 
And fi ime whera our guns with their thunder 
grow w.ii m, 

r Neath the blood on the slippery deck. 

Tee oppressed of the eaiti to that standard shall 
fly, 
Wherever irs folds shall be spread; 
And the exile ? hall feel "tie his own native sky 

Where its stars shall float over his hea •. : 
And those sta:s shall increase till the fulness of 
time 
Its million of evelea has run - 
Till the world shall have welcomed its mission 
sublime 
And the nations ov* earth shall be one. 

Then up with our flag ! Let it stream on the air ! 

Thongh our father* are cold in their graves, 
They had hands that could strike— they had souls 
that cuuld dtiv, 

And their sons were not born to be slaves ! ! 
Up, up with that banner! Where'er it may call, 

Our millions shall raily around; 
And a netiou ol Freemen that moment shall fall 

When its stars shall be trailed on on the ground. 

—Cutter. 

X. The Beginning of the End. 

Long after this book had gone to press 
and most of it had been put in print, 
.Senator Leland Stanford of California 
submitted the following resolution, which 
was read on the 10th of March, 1890, 
in the United States senate: 

" Whereas, there is a stringency m 
money and much consequent distress, 
the energies of the country being depress- 
ed, large portions of the farming com- 
munities heavily burdened and strug- 
gling for relief ; and 

Whereas, the United States government 
is alone authorized to make money 
which shall be a legal tender, whether it 
l>e by stamp upon paper, silver, or gold; 
and 

Whereas the value of the three com- 
modities when used as money depends 
entirely upon the stamp of the govern- 
ment making it a legal tender; and 

Whereas, it ha,s been found that the 
money advanced by the government 
upon its own bonds to the holders 
thereof has furnished the best and most 
acceptable currency, through which to- 
day in our country most of the exchan- 
ges are made; and 

Whereas, the present stringency is 
largely due to the retirement of govern- 
ment bonds, which have been so largely 
the basis of our circulating medium; and 

Whereas, it is of great consequence to 
national and individual interests that 
credit should be established, where mer- 
ited, as far as is safe and practicable; 
and 

Whereas, the government can do this 
abundantly, without risk to itself, upon 
much of the property of the country, as 
it is now doing upon its own bonds, on 
which it is paying interest; and 

Whereas, I oans upon a property basis 
would furnish all themonev needed with- 



out cost to the government, and a fair 
interest paid by the borrower would jive 
to the government for the use of its cred- 
its in bills a large income; Therefore be it 

Resolved, That the Committee on 
Finance be instructed to inquire what 
relief may be furnished by the United 
States government, and particularly 
whether loans may not be made by the 
government upon mortgages deposited 
with it upon real estate, independent of 
improvements, at such rate and to such 
an amount only as will make the secur- 
ity to the government perfect, the 
government to receive some small 
rate of interest, from 1 to 2 per cent 
ample compensation for the use of 
its credit, and to prevent the undue ap- 
plications for loans beyond the needs of 
the country. And the government, as 
further restraint and provision against 
an over-issue (if such a thing be possible 
upon perfect security, where the interest 
is very slight), shall provide to call in a 
percentage of it's loans, from time to 
time, upon reasonable notice, as it may 
deem necessary, at its own discretion, 
for the welfare of the nation." 

No man can read Senator Stanford's 
remarks that accompanied the resolu- 
editor of the San Francisco Argonaut, 
tion, and a report of an interview.by the 
without being convinced of his disinter- 
ested patriotism. Like Wendell Phillips, 
and like Peter Cooper, his love of human- 
ity is paramount. 

"I am myself," he says, "a working- 
man; my interests run in common with 
labor. I was born to the inheritance of 
industrial pursuits. My sympathies are 
with the class from which I came." 

That the senator has in view to re- 
lieve the people from the burden of debt 
and enable the many to own their farms 
still — his own words go to prove. He 
says : 

" If, without bearing interest, this cur- 
rency could be used for the retiring of 
an interest-bearing mortgage, it w v ould 
serve a useful purpose, nor would it op- 
perate as a hardship to the payee, be- 
cause he could use lawful money in the 
thousand active employments to which 
the money-lender knows so well how to 
avail himself." 

I have no hope that the people will 
obtain any relief from the present Con- 
gress. The resolution offered by the pat- 
riotic senator from California will not be 
passed. But it will stand as a new Deo 
laration of Independence. The issue be- 
tween capital and labor is being made 
up. It will be found that it is not pro- 
tective tariff or free trade; but finance. 

Senator Stanford sees thetimenear at 
hand when the Wall and Lombard 
street money power shall cease to rule. 
He says: 

* 4 When it shall be understood that 
money is to be issue* 1 by Government 
for l he benefit of the gi-eat class of pro- 
du ers who demand it for industrial 









( 129 ) 



purposes, and that it is not created for 
the benefit of usurers to sweat it, and of 
gamblers to risk it, and of misers to 
hoard it, of millionaires to accumulate it, 
and spendthrifts to distribute it in the 
gratification of their luxurious tastes, 
then some of the errors which now per- 
vade the whole financial system will 
have been dissipated, and the uses of 
money will be much better understood. 
Then the Congress of the United States 
will not look to Wall street, and national 
bankers, successful money-kings, and 
successful plutocrats alone for their ad- 
vice as to what kind of money should 
be used or what volume should be put 



forth. When this reformation shall take 
place, then some successful manufac- 
turer or merchant, some intelligent me- 
chanic, some broad-minded business 
man, some planter, farmer, fruit-grower, 
or laborer, may be invited to hold the 
portfolio of the Treasurer, or, better 
than that, some wise economist who un- 
derstands and appreciates financial laws 
in their broader comprehension, mav be 
asked to preside at the head of a Depart- 
ment and give an annual report, which 
states all the facts, and not suppress or 
misrepresent any economic truth in the 
interest of the money class." 



IN MEMORY 



OF CAPTAIN WILLIAM 



HOUSTON, OF D 2d IOWA INFT. AND E 23d 

Iowa inf. vol 



Sweetly the current of thy life 
Flowed on until the drum and fife 
Gave notice ol the cruel strife- 

The Upas shade 
That made a widow of the wife- 
Forlorn the maid. 

I saw thee seize thy trusty gun 
When that most wicked deed was done 
That forced the gallant Anderson 

To yield the fort;— 
' Our flag assailed ! and war begun V 

Dire, dire report. 

See Tuttle lead his valiant band 

Of stalwart braves— flower of the land ; — 

Upon the hights they take their stand, 

Of Donalson— 
They fight the Rebel hand to hand 

And gun to gun. 

Thou (then a private in the line) 
Strove in th« onset to outshine 
The bravest of that troop divine, 

Pride of our State- 
Where all were grand (ob, rash design!) 
Out great the great. 

There life-blood flowed, (a crimson tide), 
Of c >mrades fallen by thy side- 
There Weeks and Dory nobly died;— 

The Rebel yell 
And Rebel bullets they defied 

And Death and Hell. 



But Shiloh's saddest Sabbath day 
Beheld thee bleed without dismay, 
While Tuttle's veterans survey 

The horrid field; 
They stand where columns melt away: 

They will not yield. 

New-gilded epaule's thou'st won ; 
A blade displaces thy loved gun;— 
Black river crimsoned!— we're undone ! — 

For Kinsman falle !— 
But thou criest, "On till Pemberton /? 

For quarter calls! ' 

Brave heart of Oak ! Thou would'st not bend, 
But stood unyielding to the end, 
Beheld the Rebel flag descend 

From Spanish Fort- 
Gave all ; gave health— gave life,— O Friend,- 

A good report. 

Undying be thy well-earned fame; 

Remembered always be thy name, 

Because, brave boy, thy breast of flame 
Was bared to snve 

Thy country's glorious flag from shame- 
Free see it wave ! 

While still it floats o'er land and sea| 
Flag of the brave, flag of the free, 
Let floweis be strewn in memory 

Of Martyred dead — 
And, patriot, thy grave shall be 

With garlands spread. 



ESSAY XVII.— THE VITAL ISSUE : 



BRITISH GOLD VERSUS AMERICAN LABOR, OR FRAUDS OF FINANCE, 



A LECTURE 
Delivered in Des Moines, Iowa, March 28; 1881. 



"Boston, Sept 12,1881. 
Dkak Sip— I bave leceived ard read yenr essay on the '"Vital Issue 1 with great interest. Its 
arguments ate closely woven ?nd very satisfactory, your facts marshalled in logical order and 
thev march now on your reader with overwhelming power. 

1 r< joice to ste ttuse young minds in the ranks of a cause so momentous in its importance as 
that ot the Nation's taking its currency into its own control. 

Yours Reepectfuliy, Wbkdeu Phillips/' 

9 



( 130) 



Hoodwinking the masses is the last 
desperate resort of the "rich man" to 
hold labor in subjection in the United 
States, and pocket the fruits of toil 
through the manipulation of cash, in- 
stead of lash. Cash is now king. How 
long, O Lord! how long before this king 
shall also be dethroned as was king 
Lash May this cruel tyrant be put 
down by the potent ballot and may the 
bloody bullet be not again invoked in 
settling the strife between the many and 
the few, the toilers and the drones, the 
people and their plunderers ! 

I. The Resumption Fraud. 

A bill was passed by our Congress in 
1869 to "strengthen the public credit" 
just at a time when our country stood 
in no more immediate need of credit 
than a well man does of medicine; but 
w a s -it is claimed) "rapidly paying off 
her bonded indebtedness." Why was 
not this "credit-strengthening act" 
passed during the war when our country 
was getting into debt and needed to 
have her credit strengthened? The fact 
is, the title of the bill is a fraud and a 
lie. The public credit has not been 
strengthened ; but the burden of debt 
has been more than quadrupled on the 
shoulders of the American people. The 
title of the bill should rather have been: 
"A bill to increase the burden of debt and 
to transfer the wealth from the hands 
of the producing and laboring classes 
of the United States into the hands of 
the money-lenders— the Eothchilds of 
Europe and their agents in Wall street. 

(1) The people are the public; the 
credit of the people is the public credit. 
Healthful national credit must stand on 
the same footing as that of the individ- 
uals of the nation. The credit of the 
p<?ople has been greatly weakened by a 
policy of government th at h as diminished 
the value of the products of labor and 
productive property upon which credit 
(national .and individual) can alone be 
rightly founded. Any other foundation 
of credit is only enslavement of labor* 
The foundation being removed the super- 
structure, of course, falls to the ground. 
The foundation of the credit of the peo- 
ple is It? bor, the products of labor and real 
estate. Destroy their value and credit 
based upon their value is clearly over- 
thrown. From 1862 to 1869 a farmer 
could borrow more money upon his pros- 
pective crop without giving a note of 
hand than he can borrow even now (it 
is not much amiss to say) upon this 
and ah his personal property and real 
estate with notes and mortgage on top; 
for all productive property and laber 
and products of labor have had the 
bulk of the value squeezed out of them 
and this value has been squeezed into 
money (as Solon Chase expresses it) un- 
til the late secretary of treasury, the 
Hon. John Sherman, proclaimed that 



the "purchasing power of the dollar has 
been increased by resumption sixty per 
cent." — which means that all productive 
property and labor and products of 
labor are sixty per cent, cheaper to-day, 
compared with money, than they were 
before resumption began in 1869, and 
therefore, the burden of the public debt 
is sixty per cent greater. 

The immediate effect was to render 
labor and production unprofitable, as 
Mr. Suerman himself forewarned the peo- 
ple that it would do. Factories and 
farms not paying running expenses, the 
factories closed doors, the wheels of 
manufacturing stopped and the "oper- 
atives" were set adrift to wander as 
tramps, the nation losing during the 
period billions of dollars by the falling off 
of production; but farming had to go on 
with immense loss to the farmers as a 
class — mortgages on the farms the inev- 
itable result, so that now, even in Iowa, 
the richest garden of the green and 
bountiful earth, instead of there being, 
as Prssident Garfield says, "A pros- 
perity without a parallel in our history," 
behold and consider the farms under 
mortgage, positively asserted by well in- 
formed persons, after careful inquiry and 
examination of records to be at least 
calculation, one-halt I This was not so 
ten years ago. The farmers were the a 
out of debt, or, at least (to speak in 
homely phrase) the hole to get out of 
debt at was larger than the hole to get in 
debt at, but resumption opened wider 
the hole go get in debt at and plugged up 
the hole to get out of debt at. 

The wonderful prosperity "without a 
parallel in our history," (labor pretty 
generally employed, though strikes an 
every -day occurrence, tramps seen no 
more on our highways, a slight advance 
in the price of farm products; but noth- 
ing like so high as in 1865, far below the 
point of deliverance for the debt-burd- 
ened farmer) has been brought about by 
only a moderate inflation of the cur- 
rency, the result of an influx of gold from 
famine-stricken Europe and an increase 
of bank circulation, a wave that may at 
any moment subside and leave the ship 
of our present prosperity stranded high 
and dry upon the rocks. The usurers 
control in a great measure eyen now, in 
this country, the supply of currency, the 
national banks having nearly 350 mill- 
ion dollars of their paper afloat. When 
they find it necessary or expedient in 
order to advance their sordid and selfish 
schemes and robber designs, these banks 
withdraw their circulation. This they 
began to do th? other day when interest 
on money immediately rose in New York 
City five hundred per cent., a panic, as 
on Black Friday, was imminent, caused 
by the sudden retirement of less than 
twenty million dollars national bank cur- 
rency. Mr. Sherman, the secretary of the 
treasury, at once hastened to the rescue 
of his imperiled "resumption," purchas- 



aresMfl*- 



V 



( 131 ) 



ing on the market, with greenbacks, 
twenty-five million dollars government 
"bonds; thus a great financial crash, like 
that of 1873 was prevented. The people 
are between the jaws of a, huge crocodile. 
There is nothing to hinder its crushing 
and grinding their bones to pieces be- 
tween its teeth at any moment. This 
reptile is national banking and specie re- 
sumption. 

It was evidently known to the money- 
lenders of both hemispheres that resump- 
tion would force the people of the United 
States into excessive indebtedness, as it 
did the people of England after the long 
war, when the number of land owners 
on the island of Britain was reduced 
from 300 thousand to 30 thousand, and 
millions of her people were made bank- 
rupt and forced into exile to find new 
homes in the American wilderness, as all 
readers of history well know. Hence the 
trust and loan agencies representing 
largely British capital, became as nu- 
merous in our country, and especially in 
the rich West as green flies on a dead 
carcass in June or July.* Even in ad- 
vance of the general demand for money 
here did the trust and loan agencies 
swarm upon this doomed land. If the 
unfortunate farmer had not money in 
bank when the resumption robbery be- 
gan, he was driven into debt to keep up 
necessary farm expenses (taxes, fencing, 
machinery, etc.) It is conceded that the 
mortgage on the farm may be traced, 
now and then to bad management on 
the part of the individual farmer; but 
this cannot be put down as the rule, 
that bad management on the part of the 
farmers puts the farming class in debt; 
for the farmers are men of at least, av- 
erage good sense. Honest in their inten- 
tions they are slow to believe in the dis- 
honesty of others, otherwise they could 
not have been so hoodwinked by the 
money monopolists who now control 
legislation at Washington, as to be led 
to acquiesce in a policy of government 
*o oppressive to the farming and pro- 
ducing interests. 

The Old Testament history shows 
that, at one time, the Jewish people 
"mortgaged their lands, vineyards and 
houses that they might buy corn because 
of the dearth." The reason why the 
people of our country mortgaged their 
lands, vineyards and houses, was the 
dearth of money produced intentional^ 
and with " malice aforethought'.' by leg- 
islators, at the dictation of European 
money lenders for the purpose of confis- 
cating the estates of our people and giv- 
ing them a bonus to the owners of gold, 
thus opening the way here for "bonanza 
farming" on an immense scale, and mak- 
ing the farmers in this country hereafter 
renters, as in the old world, and labor 

*The most magnificent "business block" 1 in 
De§ Moines, just, completed (1887.) belong* to the 
Iow& Loan and Tmst Company 



the obedient slave of capital. This was 
no secret, even during the progress of 
contraction; but was openly avowed by 
the capitalists through the leading met- 
ropolitan newspapers, both Republican 
and Democratic — that give voice not to 
the purposes and desires of the people, 
but only to those of the " rich man." It 
must come, said the New York Times 
(Republican) a change of ownership of 
the soil and a creation of a class of land 
owners on the one hand and of tenant 
farmers on the other — something similar 
to what has long existed in the older coun- 
tries of Europe." And the New York 
World (Democratic) said: "The Amer- 
ican laborer must make up his mind not 
to be so much better off than the Euro- 
pean laborer. Men must be content to 
work for less wages. In this way the 
working man will be nearer that station 
in life to which it has pleased God to call 
him," 

(2) The public credit is not strength- 
ened; for, if another war were upon us, 
as in 1861, can any man say that the 
government credit would be better now 
than it was from 1861 to 1865?" 

" If any, speak ! for him have I offend- 
ed." The money monopolists, it is evi- 
dent, would do as they did before, com- 
bine to run the nation's credit down and 
to run the price of £old up so that they 
could reap another rich harvest from 
the misfortunes of our beloved country. 
They are only a banditti— and the sooner 
the people realize this truth the better. 
Let mankind combine against the money 
power as the money power have com- 
bined against mankind. Let the people 
protect themselves against their greatest 
enemy— the money sharks. 

Bonds are increased in their market 
value because it requires for their pay- 
ment sixty per cent, more of products 
than was originally contracted ; and it 
is products that pay all debts. One dol- 
lar's worth of bond is worth almost two 
dollar's worth of wheat. The usurer gets 
almost twice as much for his bond as 
he is in justice and equity entitled to, of 
grain, pork and beef — also of lands; 
houses, beasts of burden, mills, facto- 
ries, machinery, goods of every kind and 
description— books, paintings and every 
other handiwork, useful or orna- 
mental. In proportion as labor is en- 
slaved do the few find it easy to seize 
upon the products of labor. Is our 
country free to-day? No. W 7 hy not? 
Because millionaires are hatched out 
Lere. They are incubated only through 
slavery. Bad laws and bad institutions 
turn over to the few the proceeds of the 
labor of the many. Good laws and good 
institutions would prevent this. 

Capital is labor's products. It is perish- 
able. Let labor cease and how long will 
capital remain? Ten years of universal 
idleness would render this world a waste. 
What now exists of labor's products 
will soon not be; so we will not quarrel 



( 132 ) 



about what now exists. What shall be 
produced by toil hereafter should be- 
long to its creators, the toiiors, This 
is our thesis. This we maintain is a 
reasonable demand. Let the laborer be 
not robbed of the fruits of his labor and 
all wealth will remain with the strong of 
arm who produce it. Stop "dividing 
up;" cease taking from the many by law 
and giving to the few, and the working 
bees will soon own and control all the 
honey, and the drones will be hurried 
outside the hive hungry. All is in a nut- 
shell when it is remembered that capital 
is only labor's products, perishable, 
posing quickly away, to be renewed by 
toil, and that money is only a tool de- 
signed to aid production. 

The cheaper the money tool the better 
for producers, and it should, at least, 
cost them as little as it costs bankers — 
passing directly from the government to 
them without interest, as it does to the 
banks. It is possible to dam up the 
channels through which products Mow 
into the hands of idlers— the " tally 
ho" of eastern cities. These channels 
are the monopolies. Let "anti-monoply" 
be the watch-word of all toilei s and the 
day of labor's triumph draws nigh. 

'J he many serve the few through the 
wage system, land monopoly, corporate 
monopoly, and the bond system. The 
screws are turned by these giant powers 
and the wine is pressed out of the peo- 
ple's grapes for the exhileration and 
profit of the man in 'purple and fine 
linen who fares sumptuously every day" 
and at whose gate Lazarus begs. The 
people are helpless as sheep before the 
shearer in the presence of the great engines 
of corporate tyranny, especially of the 
two thousand na biqnal banks that mani- 
pulate the bonds. Four per cent, brings 
as much of labor and products of labor 
now as a much larger per cent, did ten 
years ago (an end aimed at and se- 
cured by resumption and gold payment) 
and the principal of the bonds being 
made payable in "specie" by an ex post 
facto law (clearly unconstitutional) is 
enhanced in value beyond the ability of 
the people to pay for many years to 
come— a continuous mortgage on the 
nation's wealth — sucking the life blood 
out of production for the benefit of a 
robber class destitute of patriotism, and 
given over to one passion alone— insa- 
tiable avarice. 

(3) What then is the nation's boasted 
credit to-day? Certainly not the fund- 
ing of matured five and six per cent, 
bonds, by a "solemn contract" made 
payable in lawful money (greenbacks) 
into four per cent, thirty year bonds, 
payable in gold or its equivalent? No, 
not this. 

" Harken that ye may the better hear!" 
It is the stupendous lie that government 
has borrowed for thirty years 175 mill- 
ion dollars gold of the European' syndi- 
cates at four per cent, annual interest. 



The government has "borrowed" not 
one dollar of gold. We have indeed 
agreed to pay 385 million dollars gold 
for 175 million dollars greenbacks; and 
this, in truth, is the whole sum of our 
boasted credit ! " Let facts be submitted 
to a. candid world." " Gold (175 million 
dollars) has been placed on deposit in 
the government safe on call, the syndi- 
cates having it in their power as all men 
know, to withdraw, in exchange for 
greenbacks " presented for redemption" 
every dollar of this gold from the na- 
tional treasury at any moment by a 
click of the telegraph instrument. The 
late secretary of the treasury, Mr. Slier. 
man denominates greenbacks "gold cer- 
tificates." Wall street has this gold 
right under its thumb. Greenbacks arc 
advertised by government authority 
" redeemable in gold at the sub- treasury 
in New York in sums of fifty dollars and 
upwards." Will any man dare say that 
the money power cannot command and 
present for redemption 175 million dol- 
lars greenbacks, when even the national 
banks profess to be able to retire in- 
stantaneously 200 million dollars of 
their circulation by depositing green- 
backs in the United States Treasury to 
that amount. 

These bullionists act in concert the 
world over. They are united as one man. 
Wall street is the head-centre, in this 
country, of the syndicates of the old 
world. It is understood that the syndi- 
cates can and will remove this gold from 
the United States treasury whenever 
they please to do so; and, it is clear, 
that they will please to do so whenever 
they lose control of our government. 
These millions of gold will not remain 
on deposit in the national treasury : in 
all probability, ten years longer; for the 
people will certainly, ere then, awaken to 
see the situation and will as certainly 
throw off the yoke of their foreign mas- 
ters as our fathers did that of George 
III, in 1775, establishing a legal-tender 
basis for money, demonetizing gold and 
silver and wiping out the stupendous 
robbery denominated the national debt. 

For the 1 75 million dollarsgold placed 
by the syndicates on deposit in the gov- 
ernmant safe on call for greenbacks, the 
government has given four per cent 
thirty year bonds, interest and principal 
payable in "specie," which Mr. Sherman 
defines to mean '• gold or its equivalent." 
Interest on these to matu- 

ritv $210,000,000 

Face of bonds 175,000,000 

Total $385,000,000 

gold paid by the people to "redeem" 
175 million dollars greenbacks! 

In the same fraudulent way the people 
are made to give in "g*)ld or its equiv- 
alent" 185 million dollars for silver to 
displace for twenty years 50 million 
dollars fractional paper currency— three 



( 133) 

dollars and nifty cents gold equivalent for two dollars and eighty-five cents 

lor each dollar of paper money. greenbacks, investing m greenbacks at 

ioreacnuo y i j t ^^ „ tQ make gome 

Bo^s ■»•"■•"■•""■ i, 7?'nOA 000 monish." Now the grateful government 

Int. 5 per cent 30 years 7o,00o,000 lt ± „ M f;he bullion owner8 

Sliver worn out in 20 ye ars, 50,000,000 ^ do „ ar8 B and 8 twe nty cents gold for 

Total $175,000,000 each of at least 175 million dollars 

xuu * , ' , areenbacks "to strengthen the public 

The silver coin will be worn out and *f®^T Kfc> M 

gone ten years before the bonds become "euiu 

due. As the holder of a sinecure in 

England is paid a large salary, or a II. The National Backing Fraud. 

" star route" contractor in our country /,..., *• ii«„v 

« reaps where he has not sown," so do Let us now look at the.nationalbank- 

we rent at "great cost imaginary silver. mg fraud. 

To keep 50 million dollar's silver cur- The notes of these banks are said to 

rencv actually afloat until the thirty be "redeemable." This saying is a he 

year bonds become due, will require They are declared W^/^ 6 ";^^ 

x, j j t 1,4- / ^Ai-' „n « ^n c>r\n nnn par in all parts of the United States in 

Bonded debt (additional) ,$ 9,0,000,000 P P taxeg and wciMB and all 

Int. 10 years |o,000 ,000 I ^ ^ tQ United states . excepfc 

Silver worn out i??non 000 duties on imports, and also for all sal- 
Add previous expenditur e, 175,000,000 aries and Q ^ ev ^ ebtg and demands 

Total $275 000,000 owing by the United States to individ- 

, „ r'fti'f" \ a „L "anld uals, corporations and associations 

or five dollars and fifty cents gold the United States, except inter- 

equivalent" for each dollar displaced of Qn b]ic debt „ And the statute 

fractional paper money The length of expressly declares these notes 

time silver coin in actual use as a cur- (l mo S, Why was this endorsement 

rency is estimated to last is only twenty £ hem , the gover nment? Being 

years, on a principle of reckoning s imilar | hug dorsed declared to be " money," 

to that which places the average life of d f d . tQ circulation pai d out to 

man at thirty-six years Some men cre ditors of the nation ["kon- 

however, live to be a hundred years old we „ to those cred . 

and some silyer coins are very ancient, ito rs national bank "monev;" "dis- 

Fifty million dollars silver com to last a „ t ay bond owners greenbacks!] 

century for a currency will cost, on the and receive ^ ( u paym ent of public dues 

Sherman plan . by tbe au thority of law, renders national 

:30 year bonds (5 issues 50 bank bills practically identical as money 

million dollars each) $250,000,000 with greenbacks in which they are pre- 

Interest 150 years 375,000,000 tended to be redeemable. 

Silver wornoutin 100 ye^rs 250,000,000 National bank bills are no more re- 

„ . . tQ7r nnn nftn deemable than are silver and gold. They 

Total |87o,000,000 are inte rchangable ; at par for other 

to take the place of 50 million dollars forms of money. Trade dollars are not 

fractional paper money, a better money thus interchangable because not legal 

than silver and that costs only the price tender. It is clearly not optional with 

of the paper and the printing— not so government, " individuals, corporations 

much as even the coinage of the silver— and associations" to' receive national 

seventeen dollars and fifty cents "specie" bank bills or not when presented or 

(gold equivalent) for each dollar of tendered in payment of taxes and debts 

paper money. This is a fair sample of as the law directs. They are by law, 

the whole resumption cheat. compelled to receive and not refuse 

The government gives 210 million them. Law lays down a rute binding 

dollars bonus to European capitalists every day, every hour, everv minute and 

to induce them to deposit with our gov- every second until repealed, therefore 

ernment 175 million dollars gold, to re- until the statute (speaking the nation s 

main on deposit in the the government voice repealing this robber law) says 

safe just so long as the syndicates that " refusable," the bank bills must circu- 

deposit it please to allow, and to be late as fiat money, and never return 

drawn out bv them at their discretion upon the issuer. It is a huge sham to 

in redemption of non-interest-bearing talk of one money being redeemable in 

greenbacks at par, the government pay- another money— the one being made as 

ing interest on the gold sav, at least, good by legal endorsement as the other, 

twenty years after the syndicates have Legal-tender and quasi legal tender may 

got it all back in their own vaults in ex- be interchangable, but not redeemable, 

change for greenbacks, 385 million dol- interchangableness being the result of 

lars gold paid for 175 million dollars par value, not par value the result of 

greenbacks— two dollars and twenty interchangableness. No man will ever 

cents gold for each dollar greenback be so idiotic as to present a national 

money bank bill for "redemption" in green- 

At one time during the w>< r, the pat- backs with the expectation of obtaining 

riotic bullion owners bid one dollar gold a better money thereby while the bank 



( 134 ) 



bill continues "receivable",, for taxes, 
salaries, etc. 

The authors of this measure to con- 
ceal their selfish purpose, devised a cun- 
ning cheat, procuring congress to place 
upon the bank bills the word "receiv- 
able" inotead of the word "legal tender." 
Worthless non-interest-bearing notes— 
the credit of private corporations, they 
had government endorse and make prac- 
tically legal-tender under cover of the 
word "receivable." "Grave doubts" 
have never been entertained by the na- 
tional bankers, nor by their accredited 
agents in the presidential chair (it would 
seem) of the power of congress to do 
this. It is (we must conclude) in their 
opinion " constitutional " for congress 
to enact that national bank bills " shall 
be receivable at par in all parts of the 
United States in payment of all taxes 
and excises and all other dues to the 
United States, except duties on imports, 
and also for all salaries and other debts 
and demands owing by the United 
States to individuals, corporations 
and associations within the United 
States, except interest on public debt." 
But to bestow precisely this same tax- 
paying and debt-paying quality and 
power on greenbacks, the credit of the 
government, "grave doubts are enter- 
tained whether it is warranted by the 
constitution," say they. The national 
banking corporations have issued their 
ukase and three successive presidents of 
the United States in the role of heralds 
have proclaimed it: " The greenback 
must be destroyed." Then will the 
money lenders have the people com- 
pletely in their power and all business 
under a deadfall. The banking and 
creditor class may spving the trigger, 
crush all industries and bankrupt so- 
ciety at pleasure, gathering all the prop- 
erty of the debtor class into their pos- 
session. 

The endorsement of government clears- 
monetizes the national bank bills, equal- 
izes them with greenbacks in money 
quality for the payments named in the 
law and for all other payments, since no 
one will refuse that "money" which the 
government of his country accepts, 
without it may be the national bankers 
themselves who, having this license, will 
use it when it shall be to their interest 
to do so. Who will present an axe to be 
redeemed in another axe no better than 
the one to be redeemed? The axes might 
be interchangeable if equally good, it be- 
ing then indifferent which axe one had 
to work with,— interchangeable because 
equally good, not equally good because 
interchangeable. A distinction with a 
marked diffeience. Nick badly one of 
the axes, leaving the other sharp, and 
they are no longer interchangeable the 
one for the other indifferently. The 
sharp axe will be taken oy the workmen 
every time and the dull axe left behind. 
Nick the greenback, deprive it of legal 



tender quality, as President Garfield 
asked Congress to do, and no man will 
take greenbacks when bank bills can be 
had that have the word "receivable" 
stamped upon them by law — take away 
"r( ceivable" from the bank bills, as the 
people should compel their servants — 
the law makers at Washington — imme- 
diately to do, and no one will rake 
bank bills when greenbacks marked 
"legal-tender" can be obtained. 

But let Congress attempt to demon- 
etize the national bank bills and the na- 
tional bankers will protest agaii.-t it 
loudly, unless the greenbacks are de- 
monetized at the same time. Thev will 
not oppose the demonetization oJ the 
national bank bills after the greenbacks 
have all been destroyed; for they have 
so declared in resolution at Saratoga; 
since, to deprive the people of all debt- 
paying, tax-paying paper money v ould 
render them still more powerless and 
dependent upon usurers. Nothing but 
specie paying taxes and debts, and the 
banks cornering the specie they would 
hold the people tightly in hand and well 
under the yoke. Bank paper would >till 
circulate; for the people must have a 
paper currency and "wild cat" r- pref- 
erable to no paper money at all. Legal 
tender paper afloat, bank notes could 
not by any means have been palmed 
upon the people during the war but for 
their endorsement by government. 
This is the reason why "receivable" was 
printed on the bills. Government en- 
dorsement Avas essential to the bank 
note then, because the gteenbaU: ex- 
isted and while the greenback continues 
to exist it is essential still. Bank paper 
cannot survive and float beside the 
greenback a day without being quasi 
legal tender— a greenback in disguise,, 
but a thief and a robber in fact and in 
deed. The reason why old style bank: 
notes ever floated as a currencv is, 
clearly, the superiority of paper money 
over metal money in convenience. The 
people were # willing to take risks and re- 
ceive bank paper solely because 01 the 
inconvenience of handling specie. It was 
a price paid for convenient monev that 
every dollar of wildcat paper did not 
hasten immediately back to the banks 
for redemption in coin. Nobody wanted 
com if paper could be had that was" ass- 
able, and nobody wants coin to-dav, as 
Mr. Sherman himself admits. 

The bond-owners are clamoring for 
the demonetization of the greenback so 
that bank bills may be the only paper 
money of our country and the lords 
and gods of the United States be forever 
the national bankers. Savs the New 
York Mercantile Journal: " The national 
bank managers insist upon retaining 
power to regulate the volume of the cur- 
rency at their pleasure, and without any 
lestriction from the laws under which 
banks are organized. Twenty years ago 
the government could have as logically 



( 135 ) 



surrendered its capital to the rebels, as 
Congress can now surrender this power 
to the banks or to any particular class 
of its citizens." Did not the banks 
threaten the government and the nation 
the other day with a contraction of the 
currency that would destroy all busi- 
ness, arid did not President Hays get 
down on his coward knees to them and 
veto the refunding bill at their dictation? 
and does not President Garfield say: 
" The refunding of the national debt at 
a low rate of interest should be accom- 
plished without compelling the with- 
drawal of the national bank notes and 
thus disturbing the business of the coun- 
try." — "Compelling!" — the banks hold 
over the heads of the people the threat of 
" retiring their circulation" to compel 
them to yield to the wicked demands of 
soulless corporations, mad as were the 
slave buyers before the war and as de- 
termined to rule or ruin. 

But each and every national bank bill 
would be ''retired from circulation" by 
the people themselves, "pass to the 
bourne whence no traveler returns"— be 
spurned as they ought to be now under 
our feet, if they were not "receivable"' 
for public dues, etc., but depended for 
value on redeemability in legal-tender 
paper money. Having no superiority 
over greenbacks in convenience (as old 
style bank paper had over specie) and 
being no longer "receivable," bank bills 
would not be in any demand when 
greenbacks could be obtained. National 
bank bills are practically an "irredeem- 
able" currency, there being no difference 
in their nature from greenbacks in a 
legal sense— even exempt from taxation 
as a form of "government credits" the 
same as gieenbacks. The points of dif- 
ference are these : their tremendous ex- 
pensiveness to the people and the sham 
pretense of being an "innocent note pay- 
able in greenbacks on demand." They 
are a lie, a cheat, a wholesale robbery of 
the people, a confiscation (atoneswoop) 
of 350 million dollars of the nation's 
wealth and its bestowal gratis on the 
bond-owing class— and this last state- 
ment will bear repeating until public at- 
tention is awakened to the enormity of 
the wrong. 

It is worthy of special note that while 
bank bills are practically legal-tender 
in payment of public dues, salaries of 
officials as pobtmasters,etc, for soldiers 
pay and pension of disabled " boys in 
blue" and their widows and orphans— for 
wages of all laborers employed on pub- 
lic works— carpenters, masons, hod-car- 
riers, etc., — to canal, railroad and ship- 
companies for transportation of troops, 
munitions of war and carrying the 
mails — to manufacturing companies in 
payment for powder, balls, pistols, guns, 
cannons, and all other war implements 
and material— to merchants for clothing, 
and to farmers for provisions for army 
and navy— to ship builders in payment 



for monitors and other ships of war — 
yet they are not "receivable" by the 
bankers themselves as a class for what 
the people owe them. And the govern- 
ment, too. is choked off from paying the 
national bankers in their own "money" 
the interest on the very bonds that are 
the basis of the banking fraud. Each 
banker is obliged to accept only his own 
individual currency from the people and 
not national bank bills in general— and 
from the government not even his own 
individual bank notes as interest on 
bonds, which "shall be paid in coin. - ' 

Who dictated the passage of this des- 
picable act, exempting the national 
banking class from the necessity of tak- 
ing bank "money" and forcing it on gov- 
ernment and individuals? The people 
never dictated the passage of any such 
preposterous law; but only the brazen- 
faced national bankers themselves. The 
national bankers have been presented a 
bonus of 350 million dollars tax-paying, 
debt-paying "inone\-" — a virtual confis- 
cation, (I again affirm) of 350 million 
dollars of the people's property and the 
giving of the same gratis to a class of 
men able to live without being thus sup- 
ported as paupers by lavish taxation 
and sweeping robberv of the producing 
class. Giving away the checks for prop- 
erty is the same thing in effect as giving 
away the property itself that the checks 
will buy— a wholesale confiscation (let 
us ever bear m mind) of 350 million dol- 
la is of the people's propert}' and its be- 
stowal gratis on the bond-owning class 
—"communism," indeed of the most 
hateful type; for it is robbing the poor 
to give to the rich. Givp me the checks 
for all the property of the nation and 
all the property of the nation is 
mine, as when I have a sheriffs 1 
deed for your farm it is mine. 
Let prices rise or fall, it is no matter, I 
can command all things for sale. Let 
the fanner be deluded with an apparent 
high price for his grain, pork and beef, 
in consequence of an inflation of 
bank bills— it is only a delusion — 
the grain, and pork and beef are 
the bankers who have received as a 
gratuity from government the checks 
that must command the surplus pro- 
ducts and the labor of the land. Infla- 
tion of bank bills and consequent ad- 
vanced prices of labor and products, 
are no sign of prosperity of producers 
and laborers as a class, but mark only 
theissuanceby government gratuitously 
to bond owners of so many more checks 
for property and labor- — the confisca- 
tion of so much more of the wealth of 
the country and its bestowal gratis on 
the bond-owning class. The bond own- 
ers have only to present the checks that 
cost them nothing and walk off with the 
property. Let the government legalize 
counterfeiting as it has legalized na- 
tional banking and it would be no 
greater, but only the very same wrong 



( 136 ) 

to labor. And let it give into the hands violation of every principle of justice 
of a few counterfeiters the monopoly of and political economy^ was the change 
issuing an unlimited amount of counter- of payment of the bonds from green- 
Seit paper money, the government en- backs to coin. But it was of a piece 
dorsing this paper as it does national with all the rest of the financial policy 
bank bills, (which are in fact, only coun- of our government, which seems to have 
terfeit money legalized); let these monop- been (as most assuredly it was) as 
olists issue at once 350 million dollars wholly in favor of foreign interests and 
of this "sham money" made as good as against American, as though our ad- 
gold by legal endorsement—the same as ministration had been conducted ex- 
national bank notes are. Times will, of clusively by foreign cabinets." 
course, become flush, because of the The Old World has gold that has been, 
abundance of this counterfeit currency; thousands of years, accumulating in the 
and shallow observers and interested vaults of her banks through usury and 
liars and deceivers of the people will gloat the plundering of weak nations by force 
over the " wonderful prosperity" of the of arms in the interest of the lords "of 
country, as they do now. But the fact cash." The New World has products 
will ever remain incontrover table, as it that spring almost spontaneously from 
is to-day, under national banking, her virgin soil. It is evidently the cun- 
that the ownership of 350 million ning and hateful purpose of the Old 
dollars worth of property thus passes World bullionists to absorb (or steal) 
from the many to the few — from the peo- the products of the New World through 
pie to the counterfeiters. Thus are na- interest paid by us to them, for a thing 
tional banking (legalized counterfeiting) we do not need, and really cannot use, 
and its results seen to-day in our coun- i. e., gold. Suppose Mr. "Sherman did, 
ti.. . indeed, purchase in good faith with the 

vVhat a tremendous advantage this four per cent thirty year bonds 175 mil- 
robber system gives British capital lion dollars British gold now in the trea- 
over American labor ! British capital- sury, intending it to be coined into cur- 
ists through their agents establish and rency to circulate in the channels of 
control the principal money corpora- business here instead of legal tender 
tions in America. It is British capital greenbacks, until worn out — a very few 
under specie basis and national banking years— not over fifteen; for gold being. 
that moves and controls through Wall softer, wears out more readily than 
Street; all the great operations of busi- silver — the cost to the people will be a 
ness and exchange on this continent. By clean loss of 
giving up the legal-tender greenback, we „ , , , , . . , . , (a . 1 __ r . AA AA 

abdicate power, surrender sovereignty, Bonded bebt to be paid *1 '£,000,000 

become vassals and slaves of England- I Q <f jest 30 ^ ars " ?J2'nnn'onn 

paying tribute to her moneyed aristo- Gold com worn out J^OC^OOO 

eracy beyond all that is exacted by her ^ 

from Iudia, Africa, Australia, Canada, Total $560,000,000 

and all her other colonies and posses- for the sake of having in circulation for 

sions, and far beyond the wildest dreams fifteen years 175 million dollars gold 

and expectations of George III, and the coin in the place of 175 million dollars 

fears that led our fathers into the war of greenbacks. To keep this amount of 

the Revolution — the anuual drain on gold currency in the channels of business 

American production— for interest alone nere for thirty years on the Sherman 

even now, being (as will be more fully plan, as above," will cost our people 

shown before the close of this lecture) 1,120 million dollars; and for one hun- 

Bot less than 1,300 million dollars ! dreel years 3,700 million dollars— a con- 

An English writer lately said: "The stant outflow of 37 million dollars 
large capital of England is the most es- yearly tribute to England , while green- 
sential weapon now remaining by which backs would cost comparatively noth- 
our (England's) supremacy can be ing, saving to our industries nearly every 
maintained." And the London Econo- dollar of thi^ vast sum, which must be 
mist adds: "When the United States paid to European capitalists in our sur- 
debt is paid off it will, in effect, be a sub- plus products, wheat, corn, pork, beef, 
traction from the profits of European cotton and wool, etc., at gold prices— 
:apital equal to an income tax of three lower and lower as gold becomes scarcer 
shillings in the pound." How true are and scarcer. * * * * Gold and silver 
the words of Mr. Winder, who, in his must be "monetized" by legaljexactment 
testimony before the monetary commis- to be valid money the same as paper. 
sion of the Forty-fifth Congress, said: But if paper money be furnished the peo - 
•The power of a creditor country over p'e by the government after the plan of 
the currency, interest and welfare of a 1723, so highly approved by Dr. Frank- 
largely debtor country with convertible lin, it would be a source of revenue to 
currency, is more searching, absolute our country. 

and despotic than that of any tyrant that But paper money is now, has been for 

has ever plundered the people." And he many years and ever will be practically 

further adds: "But the great, and the only money of businesss. Let this 

transcendent wrong (and most absurd be no longer issued as a loan without 



• :.' 



( 13V ) 



interest by the government to bond- 
owners. National banking should be at 
once suppressed. If under this system 
we are not compelled as "individuals, 
corporations and associations" to bor- 
row directly the foreigner's gold, we are 
compelled to borrow national bank bills, 
issued by our government gratis to the 
agents of British capitalists, who have 
invested their gold in American bonds. 
How completely, then, the national 
banking system and specie basis bring 
us into dependence upon foreign bullion 
owners for money, both paper and 
specie ! We exchange government bonds 
for bullion to be coined into specie, and 
these same bonds are then made the 
basis of national banking — ninety per- 
cent of their face value being returned to 
the bond purchaser by the government, 
in national bank money made as' good 
as greenbacks by government endorse- 
ment — a free gift to the bond owners — 
one hundred thousand dollars, four, 
five or six per cent bonds, costing the 
banker only ten thousand dollars. 
Upon this small investment he draws 
fro in the production of our country four 
thousand, five thousand or six thous- 
and dollars yearly interest. 

Rather let the law say to every work- 
ing man in America " Deposit your earn- 
ings in the money-order postoffice, re- 
ceceive from government four per cent 
annual interest on the same for thirty 
years, take back immediately from gov- 
ernment ninety per cent in money as 
good as that you deposit — on the same 
terms that bond owners are given ninety 
per cent of the face value of their bonds 
in tax-paying, debt-paying money." 
Such appreciative attention to the in- 
terests of the toilers by the government 
would be a great boon to the industri- 
ous, going far to preserve in the hands 
of the working people the wealth pro- 
duced by them. If the government must 
pay interest, let it be paid to American 
workers to stimulate production and 
aid producers, and nob to British cap- 
italists and their agents to dr used by 
them to break down our government, as 
those capitalists attempted to do by 
openly assisting the South in the late 
war. for which England was compelled 
to make restitution to the United States 
for damages of sixteen and one-half 
million dollars. British capitalists are 
our enemies to-day, as thay were during 
our civil strife. British aristocracy is 
the unrelenting foe of American democ- 
racy. 

Why should not the toiler have the 
right to deposit even his ten dollars and 
draw upon it four per cent annual in- 
terest for thirty years, receiving also 
im mediately from government nine dol- 
lars of currency, if the bondowner is 
allowed on his one hundred thousand 
dollars invested in bonds four per cent 
annual interest for thirty years and a 
bonus of ninety thousand' dollars legal 



paper "money 



Is not the ten dollars 



of the earnings of an American laborer 
as deserving of a bonus of nine dollars 
and four per cent annual interest for 
thirty years, as the one hundred thous- 
and dollars of bond owners money, got 
by usury, is of a bonus of ninety thous- 
and dollars and four per cent annual in- 
terest for thirty years? Let the toilers 
of our country demand equal rights 
under our laws with foreign capitalists 
and their Tory agents here that mani- 
pulate the government to sustain the 
national banking swindle. 

Then (to show more clearly the supe- 
rior possibilities and," advantages" of 
national banking, oven on a small scale) 
the working man might, with a capital 
of only twenty dollars, deposit in the 
money-order postoffice ten dollars, re- 
ceive back nine, deposit ten again, re- 
ceive back nine, and going on in this 
way until he has not ten to deposit, he 
would have the government indebted to 
him one hundred and ten dollars, and 
yet have remaining nine of his original 
twenty dollars capital. This investment 
of only eleven dollars, would bring him 
four dollars and forty cents per annum 
interest, forty per cent, or in thirty 
years one hundred and thirty-two dol- 
lars, drawn from the national govern- 
ment. Figures do not lie This is an 
epitome of the national banking system. 
At the end of twenty years the banker 
has received from government eighty 
thousand dollars interest on a ten 
thousand dollar loan— 40 per cent per 
annum. Every four per cent bond held 
as the bafsis of national banking, pays 
the banker forty per cent per annum, 
while his bank charter lasts, every five 
per cent, fifty, and every six per cent, 
sixty, for one hundred thousand dollars 
in bonds costs him only ten thous- 
and dollars — the ninety per cent 
tax-paying, debt-paying money returned 
being practically a free gift to the banker 
from the government. To lend the 
banker, (or any man,) money for twenty 
years without interest is, in effect, to 
make him a present of the money, to say 
nothing of the bankers having his loan 
renewed bv getting his bank "rechar- 
tered" at the end of the twenty years, 
which he confidently expects to do, and 
certainly will do, if the people do not 
again take control of the government 
and prevent it, as they did when they 
elected old "hickory" Jackson, of blessed 
memory, President. Truly the national 
banking system gives the capitalists an 
unlimited power over the people, of tax- 
ation and extortion — a power greater 
than our government itself possesses, 
that, in theory, cannot tax the people 
without their consent (though in prac- 
tice it often does.) 

These corporations are the absolute 
masters of the American people to-day. 
O that we could say in reverbant tones, 
awakening a slumbering nation: They 



( 138 ) 



shall not be so to-morrow! They can 
bankrupt and make a tramp of every 
business man in the United States in 
thirty days; and they will do it whenever 
they deem it to their interest. They 
threaten it now, if not obeyed by the re- 
creant old-party leaders, who are, at 
this moment, in greater terror of the 
banks than the Czar is of the Nihilists. 
Let the national banks suddenly retire 
their circulation 200 million dollars, as 
they have threatened to do, if not 
obeyed by the government, and ruin 
Avill sweep through this land, devouring 
all business as the flames devoured Chi- 
cago. Public indignation, rising to sub- 
lime intensity as it did in the North 
when Beauregard opened fire on Sumter, 
would bury the rotten leaders out of 
sight. Our country to-day is Prometheus, 

'• Chained to the cold rocus of Mount Caucasus ;'' 
the national banking corporations are 

'• The. Vulture at his vitalf, ;" 
corrupt party leaders, Vulcan, who 
forged the chains that bind our country. 
The "links of the lame Lemnean" are 
indeed "festering" in her flesh! 

If the laws would only declare farmers' 
notes without interest secured by first 
mortgage on productive lands (the notes 
covering, say ninety per cent legal valua- 
tion of taxable land, the same per cent 
of credit as is allowed capitalists on non- 
taxable bonds) " receivable a.t par in all 
parts ot the United States in payment 
of all taxes and excises and all other 
dues to the United States, except duties 
on imports, and also for all salaries and 
other debts and demands owing by the 
United States to individuals, corpora- 
tions and associations within the United 
States, except interest on public debt," 
how soon would the farmers be free from 
the burden of usury? These notes being 
thus "monetized" by the endorsement of 
the general government and put afloat 
by the farmers in all parts of the Union 
most distant from the homes of the per- 
sons issuing them i,as bank notes are) 
they would never come back to the farm- 
ers for redemption any more than bank 
notes come back to the bankers for re- 
demption. Let them float for twenty 
years the same as bank notes; then at 
the end of that time "recharter" them 
to float without interest or redemption 
for a second twenty years, and then 
again for a third, and so on ad infinitum 
the same as bankers propose for their 
currency, as will be presently shown. 
Then might we sing. 

"The independent farmer!" The 
farmer would be king. He ousht to be. 
Agriculture should be fostered by legisla- 
tion. It is the supreme interest But, 
it appears that the farmers, in this rich 
and productive country, have become 
the abject slaves of gold monopolists of 
the old world, reduced to this condition 
by the financial policy of our govern- 
ment, foreign bond owners dictating the 



laws — British oligarchy governing Amer- 
ica. 

But President Garfield asks Congress 
to do something for the farmers of our 
country. " The interests of agriculture" 
he says in his inaugural address, "de- 
serves more attention from government 
than they have yet received. The fa rms 
of the United States afford homes and 
employment for more than one-half our 
people and furnish much the largest part 
of all our exports. As the government 
lights our coasts for the protection of 
mariners and the benefit of our 
merce, so it should give to the tillers of 
the soil the lights of practical science 
and experience!^ Money is of supreme 
interest to American farmers as well as 
to foreign owners of American bonds. 
Give our farmers the same benefits of 
financial legislation as are given by our 
government to the British owners of our 
bonds, (or a tithe of those benefits) and 
our farmers could then hold their grain, 
pork and beef in spite of European com- 
binations, and America could set her 
own prices on her own products. Eu- 
rope would be compelled to get down on 
her knees to us, since the old world must 
have these products or starve. The new 
must feed the old, worn-out world. 
Which ought to be king, bread or- _ 
Which is of greater importance to man- 
kind? When we need gold it hides, as 
during our war. When we do not need 
it 'tis forced on us, as to-day. Ought 
gold fix the price of bread, or bread fix 
the price of gold? Let gold fix the 
of bread, we are slaves. Let bread fix 
the price of gold, we are freemen. 

Eight here lies the heart of the issue 
between hard money and soft — between 
gold and greenbacks. The man that 
stands over me and sa.ys what I shall 
have and must accept for my products 
and my work is my master and I his 
slave. America is the slave of England 
because of specie basis. Gold means our 
enslavement; greenbacks our freedom 
and independence. With legal- tender 
paper money filling all the channel- of 
business here, Europe has nothing that 
America is obliged to buy. This ac- 
counts for the great interest John Bull 
takes in American monetary affairs^ 
The greenback is our second Declaration 
of Independence. Let us defend a/ad 
perpetuate it with "our lives, our for- 
tunes and our saered honor" if need be. 
"Independence now; independence 
ever;," being the sentiment of every true 
patriot heart as it was the "living s< . ::- 
ment and the dying sentiment of ,1 
Adams. If the* old world were to - 
under the sea a thousand fathoms deep 
it would not make a ripple on the pi. eid 
ocean of our prosperity // we cut loose 
from gold. We can live and pros re- 
conquering a gigantic rebellion while 
gold hides its infamous head. 

But for government to legislate value 
right out of our lands, labor and prod- 






( 139 ) 

ucts and legislate that value right into if the bonds had been "cut up into little 
British gold, right out of everything we bits of paper" and put afloat as green- 
do possess and right into the very thing backs. Not only would the 400 million 
(gold) we do not possess, and even dollars inter est have been thus saved, but 
threatening, at the same time to destroy the 400 million dollars bonded debt, also, 
the Lincoln greenback, the savior of our floating among our people as greenbacks 
nation's life,, the source of our pros- would have been a perpetual blessing— 
perity " a present help in every time of not a debt to be paid, but an instrument 
need,"' and then buying gold bullion of to promote the prosperity of our coun- 
the foreigner with interest-bearing bonds 1ry forever. 

and returning to the bondowner, gratis, The American people have lost then 

ninety per cent of the face value of these m twenty years through the national 

bonds in tax-payins, debt-paying banking swindle 

" money better than gold itself, because Interest on 5 pr. ct. bonds, $400,000,000 

more convenient, and making gold the Bonds 400,000,000 

measure of all values" here— is not this Paper money gratuity 350,000,000 

getting down voluntarilv on our knees 

to Europe Who is the Benedict Arnold Total ; $1,150,000,000 

that has thus surrendered our country AU thig yagt gum hag been worge th . m 

to the foreign enemy British capital- thrown away-enriching as it does the 

ists cornering the gold and controlling f increasing their power to oppress 

the amount of money in our country, the le and corrupt the officials of 

both specie and paper, do now even bo- government and impoverishing the 

day, fix the prices of our products, lands m i nnoce nt victims, 

and labor, holding us as dependents Let us look at the loss already fiu urea 

aud slaves. Is any man so blinded bv in rmmd numbers far below the aggre _ 

party spirit he does, not see this gate as the figures before given do not 

Can any man tail to see that all illclnde the 28 million dollars a nuual 

the millions of dollars paid by the interest paid by the people to the bauks 

people of this country to money for the pr ivilege of using bank notes as 

lenders for interest would be saved to mone v. The figures should show : 

tne American producers if the so vein- _ . , . , , 

ment gave the same favorable endorse- Bonus paid on gold de- 

roentto well-secured, non interest-bear- posit iraud ... $ ?12'™°»{5X 

ing notes of farmers, manufacturers, Bonds for said sham... 175,000,000 

merchants, mechanics and laborers as Silver swindle to displace 

it does to the non-interest bearing fraction paper cur- .,___ . . 

notes of bond-owners? Bank notes (so ™W *°* 2 ° years 175 .,00 > 000 

called) perform the functions of monev: ^tional bank swindle 1,150,000,000 

so would these as well under a system A ? d f° years int. paid 

that could be made plain and practical for bank note s .pr.ct. o60,000.00p 

in a bill not half so long and intricate as Gi t te , $2,270,000,000 

the national bank act — which was made 

so on purpose, no doubt, to deceive the But the national banks made not les^ 
people whom it was designed to defraud than forty per cent profit in purchasing 
and rob. the bonds at a discount with depreciated 
Bank bills are recognized as "money" greenbacks in the beginning. Forty per 
by the laws— then they are given as a cent of four hundred million dollars 
bonus t© bond-owners for twenty years equals 1G0 million dollars. Thus have 
—the length of time their bank charters the people of the United States been* 
last. At the expiration of the first gulled out of 2,430 million dollars, a 
twenty years, if the bond-owners still sum vastly larger than the indemnitv 
control the government as they do now, levied by Germany upon France at the 
the charters will be renewed for another close of the Franco-Prussian war (and 
period of twenty years and, at v the end these figures show but a tithe of the loss 
•f that time, again for another period of to our industries already, by tbis bane- 
twenty y.ars, and thus on and on in ful foreign system of finance), robbed of 
perpetuo, a debt without interest never the vast amount by the European Both- 
to be paid as long as foreign bullion childs and their agents, the national 
owners and national bankers control banking syndicates that hold their an- 
our government and the national bank- nual congress at Saratogo, New York, 
ing law remains unrepealed— stolen the United States government enforcing 
property to be held until the people re- their robber decrees, 
cover it from the thieves. Do not the national bankers pay 
Besides the 350 million dollar steal, taxes? Xot a tithe of what producers 
the national bankers have received from pay— not a hundreth part of what is 
our government in interest on the 400 given them as a gratuity by the govern- 
million dollars bonds, the "basis" of ment do the national bankers ever re- 
the banking fraud, 20 million dollars per turn to the federal treasury. " One per 
annum, amounting in twenty years to cent of their issue" pays not the print. 
400 million dollars, a sum that would ing of their bills and bonds— costing t 
have been saved to American producers, national banker not so much to issiiP 

ue 



( 140 ) 

his notes as money as it does a counter- its workings. Time was when money 

leiter to print counterfeit bills. was abundant. Then agriculture and 

If national banking is so profitable labor and production of all kinds was 

why do private banks exist? , profitable. Then the laborer could, in a 

Because private banking has some ad- little while, from the profits of his labor 

vantages over national banking for men pay for a comfortable home. But there 

of moderate capital: came a change, with contraction and re- 

lst. The private banker has the lone sumption, and an odious inflation of 

and sole management of his business. notes and mortgages took place. Pros- 

2d. The private banker has the ben- perity now poured in upon money-lend- 

efit of all deposits, discounts, etc., and ers and adversity overwhelmed laborers 

has not to share profits with associates and producing men. The tramp was 

in business as in national banking, where hatched out. Laws became oppressive 

44 the big fish eat up the little fish." and men were imprisoned for no crime 

When a national bank breaks is it not but that of asking a crust of bread. A 

compelled to redeem its notes? If finally standing army of eleven thousand 

/ for any cause a national bank is com- troops— nine regiments of infantry, one 

/ pelled to surrender its charter (these of cavalry and one of artillery was en- 

/ banks never do or can break unless in listed for five years in Iowa. What for? 

stock gambling or other outside specu- To hasten the period of "stronger gov- 

lations foreign to the banking business,) ernment," the foreclosure of mortgages 

tbe government redeems the outstand- and the transfer of the landed property 

ing bank notes in gold bought of John from the hands of the many into the 

Bull with interest-bearing bonds, thus hands of the few — from the people to the 

making our bond system perpetual, and money-lenders. 

repays the bank every dollar it has ever When the greenbacks are "inflated" 
really paid for the bond— ten per cent of the people make large profits from agri- 
its face value. When banks "retire culture — one or two crops often paying 
their circulation" they only exchange for a good farm — they make large profits 
with the government paper money for from all sorts of productive labor. When 
gold paid finally on the bond. In short greenbacks are contracted and bank 
the national banking system is the cli- bills, bonds, notes and mortgages are 
max of fraud and wrong, the fruitful inflated, the profits that before flowed 
source of corruption and betrayal of to tbe producers and laborers now flow 
public trusts. The national bank and into the coffers of the money-lenders, 
railroad corporations now control two All that labor has accumulated the 
branches of the federal government— the money-lenders seize upon and pocket, 
legislative and executive. The judicial 11" is only a question as to which kind of 
branch of the government will be a inflation shall prevail— inflation of 
pliant tool in their hands before 1884; money in the pockets of the people or 
for the new judges will be of their choos- inflation of evidences of debt against 
ing- -e. %.— Stanley Mathews. the people in the pockets of usurers? 

Withdraw the money and the people are 

III. Bond-and-Note-and-Mortgage -In- overburdened with debt. Says Mr. 

flation-Fraud. Jones, in his excellent book, "Money 

is Power:" " The effort of credit to fill 

The people are taught by the capital- the vacuum caused by the retirement of 
ists through the bought-up newspaper 1,000 million dollars from the business 
press .that "an inflation of greenbacks world, explains the mystery of the bur- 
is a great evil." On the contrary, the den of debt which has pressed so hard 
exact truth is, such an inflation oper- upon the country." Under an inflation 
mes as a bankrupt law to free the mul- of nearly 2,000 million dollars of cur- 
titude of laborers and producing men rency in "the pockets of the many at the 
•from debt— a great public blessing. But close of the war, the people rejoiced; 
there is, indeed, an inflation that is a now, under a tremendous inflation of 
woeful curse to our country — an infla- 26,000 million dollars bonds, notes and 
lion of bonds, notes and mortgages in mortgages against the production of the 
the pockets of money-lenders. Such an United States in the pockets of the few. 
inflation has unfortunately fallen upon the people mourn. This estimate agrees 
our fair land to-day — a blight upon all with the statement presented in the 
legitimate business — the death and des.- work above named : 

truction of all prosperity— a sweeping National debt $ 2,000,000,000 

confiscation of the property of the many statej m u n i c i p a 1 and 

an< its seizure by the few. railroad 4,000,000,000 

Money may be made so plentiful (if Debts of 630,000 trad- 
issued by the government Uj the people erSj manufacturers es- 
in general as is now done to bond owners timated by the mone- 

in particular) as to put all laboring and t ary commission. 13,000,000,000 

producing men practically out of debt, Banks, mining and other 

or it may be so contracted as to throw companies 7,000,000,000 

all this class hopelessly into debt. The : 

rule will work both ways. We have seen Total $26,000,000,000 



( 141 ) 



» 



Interest at only five per cent becomes 
an annual drain on our country's pro- 
duction of 1,300 million dollars, and at 
eight per cent of 2,080 million dollars, 
requiring the labor of ten million of men 
at seventeen dollars and thirty-three 
and one-third cents per month, working 
all the time, from the beginning of the 
year to the end, in sunshine and storm, 
to pay it — the labor of all the voters of 
the United States ! If saved to our 
workers, language would fail to express 
the happiness it would bring them; but 
robbed of it, what misery, murders, 
suicides, and untold horrors are left in 
its stead ! 

Contraction of the currency at the dic- 
tation and command of foreign bullion- 
ists brought upon us this immense load 
of debt. The overthrow of the national 
banking system — the wiping out of the 
bond swindle— the complete demonetiza- 
tion of both gold and silver — and the 
devotion of American law-makers to the 
interests of their own country and coun- 
trymen as they are now devoted to the 
interests of foreign bullionists, would 
insure a supply of "lawful money" 
(greenbacks) that would free us from 
burden. Bankers and money-lenders do 
not object to "inflation" if it means 
bonds, notes, mortgages and even 
"money" in their pockets. They only 
object to inflation in the pockets of the 
people. They feel precisely the same in- 
terest in the people that wolves do in 
sheep. 

In a late number of the New York 
Herald it is proclaimed that "an infia- 
tidn of real money is as injurious as 
of sham money". And Blanqui in his 
"History of Political Economy" shows 
(chap. 25) that the influx of gold into 
Europe after the discovery of America, 
had the same effect to increase prices 
that we here observed to result from an 
"inflation" of national scrip. He says: 
" It was difficult to explain how provis- 
ions and other commodities could thus 
have increased in price, since they were 
neither more scarce nor more in demand. 
The same quantity of grain exchanged 
at all times for a cow or a certain num- 
ber of sheep; but when it was necessary 
to measure the commodities by means 
of money, the proportions were no 
longer the same; the buyer complained of 
being obliged to give more money, for- 
getting that when he became a seller he 
also received more." But bond-owners 
do not object to an inflation of bank 
bills. How many millions of dollars 
have been added to bank note circula- 
tion since 1879! Money must flow out 
to the people through the channels of 
the banks and loan agencies, not to be 
"injurious" in the estimation of money 
lenders. Any amount of money among 
the people, got afloat on first mortgage 
loans, bringing large interest to the 
lenders and enslaving the borrowers, is 
'healthful.' Otherwise any sort of money 



in the pockets of the people is "bad." Let 
the people be prostrate at the feet of 
the money power— as dependent on 
usurers for money as a sucking calf is 
upon its dam for milk, and all is satis- 
factory to the enemy in his war against 
greenbacks and labor. 

The only meaning of the finance ques- 
tion then is : Who shall govern America 
—the Rothchilds and their agents, or 
the American people? If the people do 
not control the paramount interest of 
finance they do not control the govern- 
ment. We cannot say ours is a govern- 
ment of the people, if the most import- 
ant public interest is under the manage- 
ment and control of an irresponsible 
few. Let us cease to depend on the few 
for money, and the many may hold and 
control what they produce by labor. 
Demonetize gold and silver and let legal 
tender paper flow out to the people, 
through the government of the people, 
and we have the highest blessing that 
can be secured— independence. 

Who should have the direction of the 
financial affairs of a farm, the owner of 
the farm or the irresponsible hired 
hand? Uncle Sam purposes controlling 
and directing in every respect the finan- 
ces of his big farm. The banks are do- 
ing practically the work of most import- 
ant public officials in issuing and con- 
trolling the volume of the nation's cur- 
rency — a most vital trust, and without 
being in any way responsible to the 
public. They are only responsible to the 
bullion-owners of the Old World. Who- 
ever dictates the financial legislation of 
a people is practically autocrat of that 
people. It is through their financial 
policy alone that nations are enslaved — 
and the end of all enslavement is finan- 
cial — the obtaining the products of la- 
bor without giving the producers a,n 
equivalent — "wrenching from the hard 
hands of peasants" the fruits of their 
sweat and toil by force or by fraud. It 
is fraud we have to deal with now ; but 
force is threatened and is not far off — 
if the people by vigorous thinking, disin- 
terested, acting for the public, weal and 
independent voting, do not hurl tyrant 
capital from his throne and crown labor 
king. Everlasting chains and slavery are 
in reserve for the people of the United 
States — labor mangled, crushed, bleed- 
ing and torn— unless the engine that is 
now plunging rapidly on toward this 
frightful Ashtabula is immediately re- 
versed. Plainly then the question is : 
"Shall the people control this govern- 
ment for the greatest good of the great- 
est number, or shall the money-lenders 
control it and use it as an engine of rob- 
bery and oppression of the masses — es- 
tablishing on the ruins of the republic a 
stronger government of money and bay- 
nets?" 

This momentous political crisis is 
forced upon us by the money power 
(stronger than the slave power of old) 



( 1*2 ) 



involving all that was at issue in the 
revolutionary struggle — the independ- 
ence of America and the welfare of the 
toiling millions for many decades, and 
even centuries to come. Let us know 
no North, no South, -no East, no West, 
but one united commonwealth, the toil- 
ers of all sections, of every color and 



race, our beloved countrymen, and stand 
once more as our fathers stood, for the 
"inalienable rights of man. "for the pres- 
ervation of popular liberty and equality, 
before it is too late, before the nation 
has passed beyond the reach of the pat- 
riot arm to save. 



ESSAY XVIIL— A PARTING WORD. 



I. The Outlook. 

May 30, 1S90. 

On the hallowed day in which the 
graves of our dead comrades who gave 
their lives for the Union and the Consti- 
tution bequeathed us by the fathers — 
are decorated with "beautiful flowers," 
I add a parting word to this col- 
lection of patriotic reflections. What is 
the outlook? It is hopeful. Not be- 
cause Congress and the courts are loyal 
to the principles of popular liberty ; for 
they are not. At present they side with 
the "creditor class." "We have not 
representation from the people strong 
enough to overcome this creditor influ- 
ence'' — says that fearless patriot, E. P. 
Clarkson, in the Daily Iowa State Regis- 
ter of May 29, 1890. " Every secretary 
of the treasury," he continues " of both 
parties is in sympathy with the creditor 
classes, and is likely to be. The indus- 
tries of the country * * * are 
handicapped by this baleful creditor in- 
fluence perpectually." " I he cause of 
the mischief," he further says, "is thor- 
oughly organized creditors, who look 
carefully after the doings of Congress; 
and unorganized complainers on the 
peoples' side. Great Britain is the 
world's creditor and ours. It is remark- 
able how much influence that country 
has in forming the public opinion of our 
people in the commercial centers of the 
Last with regard to all our policies. 
British agents are active through our 
press and through social influence at the 
■capitol." 

As an instance of the omnipotent 
force of British influence even with our 
Supreme Court, the late decision in re- 
gard to the importation of alcoholic 
and malt liquors in "original packages" 
into prohibition states, may be men- 
tioned. British capitalists have pur- 
chased most of the distilleries and brew- 
eries of the United States, investing in 
the last twelve months, in their pur- 
chase, hundreds of millions of dollars. 
These new emigrants from the " mother 
country," by the grace of our unpat- 
riotic (if not corrupt) federal court, force 
alcoholic and malt liquors upon unwilling 
states of the American Union, as, at the 
cannon's mouth, British traders force 
opium upon unwilling China. That is not 
law, but usurpation and tyranny. The 
Supreme Court has spoken at the com- 



mand of the Anglo-American whisky and 
beer trust, nullifying our most valued 
and most sacred "inalienable right" of 
"home rule" and has exalted aliens 
above state laws binding against citi- 
zens. 

The reason we are cursed with decis- 
ions o? our highest courts outraging 
common-sense, is that those courts dur- 
ing the past twenty years have been 
packed with corporation tools for 
judges, lacking brains, learniug, patriot- 
ism and integrity. Our Senate has be- 
come a house of lords that cares little 
for popular interests and popular rights. 
Our house of representatives is packed 
by the banking corporations with men 
of inferior abilities, chiefly national 
bankers and corporation attorneys. 
They do not need to want integrity 
when they want every other qualifica- 
tion of law-makers. They do not need 
to be " bribe takers" when they have no 
idea of the wants of the time — when they 
are fifty years behind the age in which 
they live — when they would attempt to 
break up combines by penal laws in- 
stead of assisting the people to organize 
a greater combination to supercede all 
the lesser trusts— a great public trust 
to swallow all the private ones and 
bring in universal co-operation to take 
the place of competition, which is now 
dead and buried. There are as many 
lovers of popular liberty to-day as ever 
before— as many unselfish— as true pat- 
riots — as great statesmen. These are 
feared by the corporations. As long as 
great private interests preponderate, 
that aie antagonistic to the public wel- 
fare, so long will corporations dictate 
the nomination of law-makers, and as 
long as these control the nominating 
conventions, so long will mediocrity sit 
enthroned at Washington. The corpo- 
rations and trusts do not want great 
men to make laws for the common- 
wealth. They want only subservient 
and submissive "tools," and these com- 
pose the overwhelming majority now of 
both houses of Congress. To be sure, 
there are good and true men— able and 
patriotic— in the Senate and in the 
House; but they are the exception and 
not the rule— the minority and not the 
majority of both branches. The majority 
have no conception of popular wants 
and no disposition to gratify them, if 
they knew what ought to be done. 



( 1*3 ) 



Western senators or western representa- 
tives are always employed to "intro- 
duce" the measures aimed to destroy 
western interests. Whpn a western man 
is pat at the head of any important 
department, (treasury, for instance), or 
movement of any kind at Washington, 
look out! Some scheme is ripening 
against the west. Watch the money 
power. 

'•Beware ! She?s fooling vou! 11 

The President of the United States is 
always a patriot, of course — and especi- 
ally "so, if a western man. But how 
has it happened that every Secretary 
of the Treasury of both parties is in 
pa.thy with the creditor classes? 

Then it looks as if our country is not 
in a hopeful condition. But it is. Pop- 
sentiment is rapidly crystalizing 
for the overthrow of the domination of 
the "creditor classes." The Farmers' 
Alliance is becoming all-powerful west 
and south, as was the Grange in 1871. 
The south is being wonderfully moved. 
North Carolina has hundreds of thous- 
ands of farmers united in this grand 
movement, led by Hon. Virgil A. Wilson. 
The Knights of Labor and Farmers' 
Alliance are preparing for independent 
poetical action in every state and ter- 
ritory of the Union. The signs of the 
times are most hopeful. 

II. The Duty Before (^ongress. 
What will be the consequence if Con- 
gress does not define the articles 
protected by inter-state commerce— as 
dynamite, alcoholic liquors (including 
ale, wmeand beer), infected clothing, 
diseased cattle, etc? The effect will be 
anarchy that may result in civil war be- 
tween the states. Iowa and Kansas will 
not tolerate the invasion of Missouri 
and Illinois ruffians or their detestable 
agents . flooding these states with alco- 
holic liquors contrary to the laws of 
these states, any more than in 1856 
Kansas tolerated the border ruffians of 
Missouri in their unlawful raids. This 
is a most serious question, touching the 
bs of the people more nearly than 
did the anti-slavery question. The 
forays of Indian savages with tomahawk 
and scalping knife were not more to be 
dreaded than the forays of the alien sa- 
loon savages from Illinois and Missouri 
are to be dreaded by the people of Iowa 
and Kansas. Both (great corn-growing 
states) have abolished the distilleries in 
their borders that consumed millions of 
bushels of grain— a great personal sacri- 
fice. They will not tolerate the citizens 
of other states, or their agents, in Iowa 
or Kansas, doing what they have refused 
to their own citizens at great cost to 
themselves. The prohibition people are 
in earnest aud will take no backward 
steps, but they will go forward at the 
sacrifice of life, if need be, for the protec- 
tion of their homes and their rights 
against alien marauders. The constitu- 



tion of the United States was ordained 
to " promote geneial welfare." When it 
has become a stumbling block in the 
path of progress, it will be set aside and 
a new constitution of government or- 
dained by the people, laying its founda- 
tion in the "'consent of the governed." 
Nothing will be permitted to stand in 
the way of progress and of the govern- 
ment " of the people, by the people, for 
the people." 

For the Federal congress to fail to 
act now for the protection of the right 
of "home rule" in reference to the rum 
traffic would be a repetition of the folly 
of the Pierce and Buchannan adminis- 
trations in giving aid and comfort to 
the slave power, the courts, congress 
and president being joined then in the 
conspiracy of the sluve lords to make 
slavery national. The people believe 
that the only reason for hesitancy now 
on the part of congress to act for the 
common protection is the influence of 
the whisky ring; the immense wealth of 
the rum power used "where it will do 
the most good" — and its wealth is 
greater than was that the of slave power. 

The foundation principle of American 
government is the "consent of the gov- 
erned." Whatever violates this princi- 
ple is un-American, and intolerable to 
us. It was because the British govern- 
ment disregarded this grand doctrine 
that our liberty-loving fathers trampled 
under foot the British flag, and rebelled 
against British rule. They declared it 
the right and duty of the people to do 
toward "anv form of government" the 
same as they did toward the British 
government when it became destructive 
of the rights of "life, liberty and the 
pursuit of happiness;" and to establish 
a new government, laying its foundation 
in the consent of the governed. Any 
other foundation is tyranny. And for 
congress to refuse to act now for the 
protection of the rights of the prohibi- 
tion states would be to abdicate power 
and establish the most detestable form 
of " state rights" — the right of the citi- 
zens of Illinois or Missouri, or "raw Eng- 
lishmen" or their agents, to do m Iowa or 
Kansas what the citizens of Iowa and 
Kansas are forbidden by the fundamen- 
tal laws of the states of Iowa and Kan- 
sas to do, i. e., to distribute alcoholic 
liquors "for a beverage," in these states. 
It would be an abrogation of the federal 
compact— amounting to a practical dis- 
solution of the Union. Because, if the 
United States government is powerless 
to, or will not protect the states from 
such form of most odious "invasion," 
the states will have no other alterna- 
tive but to protect themselves. How 
may they do this ? There will remain 
but one way. the same only that was 
open to the states of Greece of old, the 
Amphyctionic council having inadequate 
powers to settle differences between dis- 
cordant states, and leaving them to be 



( 144 ) 



. rorce of arms. If co 

< the people in 

home rule," if th< 

.Hid the federal gi 

I will no1 pro tec 1 ' lie pe< >ple against 

lidH of this ocliouH kind— will 

lawyer point out the-legal remedy 

a possible ' tlement of the 

difficulty? < >! course it has been settled 

rty years by the coui ts, federal and 

. that the people of a state have 

the righl to prohibit t r *• - mauufacture 

and - dent spirits within their 

confines. Must alien manufacturers have 

rights in Iowa that Iowa manufacturers 

have not? That would be contrary to 

all known law on earth among free 

people? 

\\v . . . on the eve of anarchy 

and civil war if congress does not pro- 
tect the inalienable right of the people 
elf-governmenl . When Illinois, or 
Nebraska, or Missouri, or Minnesota m- 
radi [owa in this detestable way. forc- 
ing rum upon us contrary to the will of 
tbe majority expressed in law — then 
the invaders ought to be driven out 
"peacefully if we can; forcefully if we 
must," if we would be true to the prin- 
ciples ol liberty and right. 

I Bpeak now of natural right— the 
right of home protection against alien 
invasion. But I believe the government 
and Hag that has protected the people 
of the fndian Territory for fifty years 
without their asking it against the rum 
traffic, will protect the peopleof the pro- 
hibition states, si nee these states have 
BO distinctly spoken, and since it has 
now become th<- prerogative of the na- 
tional government to do so. If the 
I aited States government will not do 
this, then i1 is an odious tyranny, treat- 
ing the prohibition states as shamefully, 
tyrannously and asoutragously as Eng- 
land treats freand, and deserving no 
more the love of the patriotic citizens 
ol these states than does the British 
government that of Irishmen. 

• ii nk lit, L890. 
ler, farewell. [ have fearless! v tried 



do my duty to my country] 
humanity. 1 have not spoken 
but have given deliberate utter 
my profound convictions. Yet, 
of the federal senate on the sil 
June. L890, has led me to belie 
[hive under-estimated the pat 
of the majority of that body I 
constituted. Wall and Lombard] 
monev lenders met defeat for t\ 
time in twenty-seven yearsinour 
of lords." Madness seems, howej 
have possessed our honored low 
a tor. Mr. Allison, the only senatoi 
the Mississippi valley (not incld 
Ohio valley, the home of Mr. Shx 
voting " nay" on the question of p 
silver on her ancient throne. \ 
single representative from the wesl 
south vote '"'nay" when tbe bill 
up for final passage in the lower 
with the senate amendments? I 
not. It is time the people west ^ 
Allegbanies had their eyes turne 
view the serpent— the joint-snake bi 
in pieces pictured on the nag of our 
ers with the motto 

" Unite or Die— " 

as the children of Israel looked i 
the brazen serpent in the wilderness 
is our only safety— we must unite 
without regard to party stand for A 
ican interest, or the wolf will soo 
at every door, except the doors of 
"less than fifty thousand rich mt 
that Rev. Joseph Cook says "if thep 
ent causes which produce concen 
tion of capital continue , Will Soon < 
The Tnited States." 



Note —Three additional essays that heloi 
this "Second Divison" of the Pending Coi 
are omitted in this edition, because they are 
in print in a pamphlet entitled "Money 
Labor.'" Their titles are "Paper Money and < 
Payment. The History, Nature and Offio 
Money and The Triumph of Labor,'*— 55 pi 
price 2o cts. Addres*, 

Leonard Brown, 

Polk, Io\ 



TO HON. THOMAS MITCHELL. 



nd, in all things true, 
of both old and new,— 

ahful hand 
the plow to break the land. 

•'ie day 
J' 1 *' I CUI up the clav- 

!!" u ' ■■'. T>day behold 

if old: - 
Mistake; 
•_ni awake; 
tut the same: 
iri of flame, 

mchanged, 
•n lie estrai 
duty doue- 

r first born son. 
econd hoy, 



Your later, cherished hope and joy, 
Sought the frontier, as you had done, 
To win the fight, as you had won, 
"Excelsior!" his battle cry. 
Resolved to gain the day or die, 
He marched our proudly to the field- 
Is borne back lifeless on his shield. 
Mysterious fate ! The youthful f ai I . 
Reach not their prime, though stronj 

hale; — 
They bow before life's blinding storm- 
But you bear up erect of form ; 
Seven decades kindly pass you by 
Nor bleach your hair nor dim your eye. 
Long live my friend —and sheep and kin 
Increase, and prosper thee and thine. 



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